Now many of the differences in the above table are purely due to Latin grammatical and Medieval Greek, as discussed in Latin Influences. These number in the thousands of verses, and whether they affect doctrine or not, they show the origin of Hort and Westcott was not some Greek predecessor texts from the 4th century, but Latin texts, possibly from the 2nd through 4th century, but Latin nonetheless, and back-translated from the Latin, at least in a very significant number of verses, due to Latin vestiges. (See Latin vestiges.) This points back to the church of Rome and Catholic influence.
Now, what really is important is not semantics, but doctrine, critical, essential and even passive. To grasp the overall depth of the impact of doctrinal changes, the authors of this website have discovered that between the Hort and Westcott GNT and the Stephanus GNT, there exists, by our count,
+ verses with doctrinal changes out
of about 7552 verses. That is about 42% by verse count (modern verse
numbering). That is not a "few insignificant differences," as
some supposed scholars like to tell others. (One of our own
elders at a church we used to attend tried to tell us this, plus then
proceeded to tell us that the differences existed only in style.)How many of these doctrinal changes appear in modern translations, based in whole or in part on the Hort and Westcott GNT, depends more or less on which way the wind blows, more than anything else; call it pseudo-religious-doctrinal-politics, if you will. (See List of HW GNTs to serve as an example.)
So how would you like to read the details of these
+ verses that change doctrine, mainly
different in the underlying Greek? (Most of the differences work
their way into today's modern translations.)First, we will show you a verbose example of our analysis. Then in a few more examples we will endeavor to be as brief as possible. These examples are but the "tip of the iceberg", and that "iceberg" is
+
verses (42%) out of 7552 verses with doctrinal changes.EXAMPLE ONE
In John 3:15, the words "shall not perish" are missing in the Alexandrian texts and also in the derived Hort and Westcott GNT, and in many modern translations as well. The evidence for these words is supported by the Old Latin (157 AD), the New Latin (400 AD), the Aramaic (Peshitta, 157 AD), The Diatessaron, a harmony created from the four Gospels by Taitian the Assyrian (about 170 AD), and many Greek manuscripts. Doctrinally, this is a major change made by the Alexandrian Arian/Gnostics to the Alexandrian texts, and propagated to modern translations, in the 1970s onward, via Hort and Westcott GNT (late 1800s). These few words assert that the one who believes according to the words in this verse (and other verses on how to be saved) will NOT PERISH!!!
Now for those lacking knowledge in the Greek, the word "perish" is in the aorist subjunctive middle, which means "conditionally, at an unspecified time, unto the subject of this sentence," this subject "will not perish". The word "should" in "should not perish" does not literally exist in the Greek, but is added to represent the subjunctive/conditional found in the underlying Greek verb for "perish". This is typically how it is done in Greek, rather than using a word such as "if" to describe a condition (though it sometimes is used). ( BTW, the word "not", does exist in the Greek.)
So why are the words "should not perish" so important? They are so important because they give the believer the absolute assurance, as an added emphasis, that in the next verse, John 3:16, they will not only be saved, but absolutely have no possibility of perishing, that is, eternal life is guaranteed. But what if someone stops believing, even for a moment, just before dying? Well, the conditional for John 3:15 says in effect in the underlying Greek "that if it is true that who-so-ever believes continuously" then that person "will not perish". That would make sense, of course. But wait! Who can believe continuously? That is not humanly possible, is it? Well, true, it is not humanly possible, but this verse is not speaking in human terms, but spiritual, meaning that who-so-ever believes will have a continuous belief imposed within them when they become "born of God," since the Holy Ghost/Spirit makes that happen in them, not their own efforts.
Put another way, once a person takes the initial step of initial belief, and that person is "born of God," then that person has God, via the Spirit, impose continuous belief in that person's conscience, since God is certainly capable of being continuous in this respect. So, even if, in human terms, the believer loses faith, his/her inner conscience has the presence of the Holy Spirit, and thus always has intervention from God needed to make a "born of God" believer always, continuously believe, even on their "bad hair" days.
Because God's Spirit is always present, then despite a weak faith at any given time, "belief" cannot fail, because God cannot fail. Our salvation is not based on our "fleshly" effort to believe continuously.
For clarity sake, the Greek word for "believeth" (KJV) is a present active participle, which means it involves an action that takes places continuously or repeatedly, and since the Holy Spirit is always present (as promised in other Bible verses), then the action of believing is also continuous (not just repeated).
To back all of this up, the word in the Greek in John 3:15 that is translated as "have" in "have eternal life" is in the present subjective active. So like the other subjunctive, it is also conditional with respect to "believeth" continuously. Now a present subjective active verb indicates, based on meeting the required condition, that this action is also continuous. That means to "have eternal life" is to have eternal life continuously, that is, without end. Then it is even more emphatic since that is exactly what the word "eternal" means in the Greek, namely "continuous/without-end," plus the word "life" is in the feminine. This has nothing to do with male or female, but the set of traits the feminine implies (kind of like adjectives). In this case, the feminine indicates traits such as broad, inclusive and complete. Altogether then, these are three very powerful words, that in the Greek are read as "will have continuously, without end, all-inclusive eternal life". Wow!
By now, you the reader are very bored or very excited from the above lesson. But the point is this:
(1) the manuscript witnesses provide evidence for the words "should not perish"
(2) the internal evidence from the verse itself supports "should not perish"
OK, "But what about John 3:16?", you ask. "It has the words 'should not perish' also, and the Alexandrians did not remove those words!" But you see, the underlying Greek is different for these words in John 3:16, and so the Gnostic believers of Alexandria were not nearly as "offended" with respect to their beliefs. In John 3:15 and John 3:16, the same stem-word is used in the Greek for "perish" but in verse 15, the verb is in the middle voice, but in verse 16, it is in the passive voice.
Now the passive voice is easily understood by English speakers, but not the middle voice. So by way of explanation, in John 3:16, to "not perish" is "imposed" on the believer "passively," was apparently was not offensive to the Gnostics, who supported passive meditation in order to receive the "higher knowledge" that led eventually to never perishing, that is, eternal life. Conversely, when they saw the verb "perish" in the middle voice in verse 15, it meant to them that to "not perish" would be of immediate impact on a believer, at the time of his/her initial belief in Christ. So they had the motive to pull these words out of the Greek, which is evidenced in the Hort and Westcott and Alexandrian manuscripts.
Further thoughts for the serious student (skip if not interested) ...
At this point, some might notice in some translations, such as the KJV, the same exact word for "eternal" in the Greek, is translated in verse 15 as "eternal" but in verse 16, as "everlasting". When one reads about the history of the KJV, one then understands why. While the underlying Greek is spelled exactly the same way in verse 15 and verse 16, the KJV translators chose to use words that provided not just translation, but interpretation. For example, except for when "pneuma" in the Greek literally means "wind" in the context, it is interpreted as "ghost" or "spirit". We do not say "Holy Wind," even though that is the correct literal translation. All the translators "interpret" for us.
So then, the KJV translators, and many other translators as well, have interpreted verse 15 and 16, differently, no matter how slight it seems. In the case of "eternal" versus "everlasting," it has to do with the context, and the more precise meaning of each of these two words. Digging deeper into the roots of these words in English, we find that "eternal" is related to "timeless", but "everlasting" is related to "without end". So without a lot of boring detail, suffice it to say that because "perish" in verse 15 is in the middle voice, the translators interpreted that as "eternal" and because in verse 16 it is in the passive voice, they interpreted it as "everlasting".
If you think about it long enough, this all makes sense, since the middle voice is more related to time (what happens at this time?), and hence "eternal" life, while the passive voice is more related to the event (when does it happen?), and hence "everlasting".
There are hundreds of verses where such words have been dropped in the Hort and Westcott GNT, and where the result has changed doctrine.
EXAMPLE TWO:
Acts 8:37 is completely missing in most modern translations. Well, it is also missing in the Latin of Jerome of the 4th century, and thus in Hort and Westcott GNT as well, since the Alexandrian texts (actually based on the Latin texts, in part), also did not have the verse.
It is found, however, in the Old Latin and Aramaic Peshitta (both about 157 AD), is cited in the writings of Irenaeus (180 AD), Cyprian (250 AD), Tertullian (2nd century), Pacian (370 AD), and Ambrose and Augustine (4th century). There are other early witnesses as well.
So then, it appears that the "Catholics" of the church of Rome ran afoul of this verse in their own Greek sources, because they already decided centuries before the 4th century (some records show as early as the 2nd century), that they would baptize babies for their immediate entrance into "THE CHURCH", instead of waiting until they became adults. Thus, so as not to have to somehow explain this verse away to inquiring minds, it apparently was easier for them to just leave it out of the 4th century Latin Vulgate. After all, the Catholic church supported the doctrine of direct inspiration to the pope from God, who simply said something like "pull the verse because God said to" and so it was not put into put into the Latin Vulgate of the 4th century by Jerome.
So why is Acts 8:37 so important? In a word "salvation". It simply is a verse that says in no uncertain terms that the prerequisite to have the right to be baptized is to believe in Jesus Christ (believe you will be saved by grace because of His crucifixion and resurrection). In other words, if you are not saved first, you should not be permitted to be baptized.
Obviously, babies cannot believe first, so babies have no "right" to be baptized. This is not to say children at a very early age of reasoning cannot make a decision for Christ, and be baptized at an early age. Before that age, God is the judge as to when He decides who is accountable or not, and if not accountable, likely bound for Heaven, though we cannot be sure.
But why is it so important that baptism be proceeded by belief? Ans: It is so the unsaved sinner understands that baptism is not what really saves anyone, but one is saved by faith alone, by the grace of God, and nothing else. Baptism then is provided to the believer, not to the unbeliever, and not to babies too young to believe. And it is actually provided as a form of "acceptance" by the baptizer, when that baptizer has accepted their testimony as genuine: that they have trusted in Jesus Christ to save them from their sins, and not trusted the ritual of baptism to save them. This makes a huge difference with respect to salvation, and the final destination, heaven or hell.
In fact, in Acts 10:47, the presence of the Holy Ghost in some believers who had not yet been baptized showed that baptism does not save, and that baptism is a act of "acceptance" of those who were saved, as attested to by the Holy Ghost's presence within believers before they were ever baptized.
As one can guess, this is a sore point of contention with those denominations that practice salvation via baptism.
(BTW, one of the authors of this website actually saw a Catholic baptism kit for baptizing the accidentally aborted fetus. It had in the kit instructions on how this was done by the priest, along with already blessed water, towel for grasping the fetus, a special dish to set it in and other stuff. This shows how seriously they think of baptism saving a soul.)
There are hundreds of verses (by modern verse numbering) that have been dropped in the Hort and Westcott GNT, because they were also missing in the Latin of Jerome and/or the Alexandrian texts, and yet everyone of them can be shown to have been in the original texts via manuscript evidence. And those that say there is no manuscript evidence, are either lying or simply refusing to do thorough research.
EXAMPLE THREE:
Can you believe that one word in Greek with two letters changed can impact doctrinal interpretation? Take Matt 16, where Jesus talks about building His church. Catholics have taken this to mean that Peter was the first pope, that is, the first vicar of Christ. The problem is, the Greek disagrees.
When Jesus says Peter (petros), it is in the masculine, meaning an individual, exclusive and something tangible. But when he says He will build His church on "this Rock" (petra), it is in the feminine, meaning inclusive, corporate and intangible. Well, three simple observations about Peter: (1) he is an individual, not corporate, (2) he is not intangible, but tangible, and (3) he is exclusive to himself, not inclusive of the whole body of believers.
So what did Jesus really mean? It is obvious to those who are truly born of God that the intangible church is made up of those believers that the Spirit of God lives in. Furthermore, this "rock" is corporate, not individual. If Jesus was saying anything about human involvement at all, in building "the church", it was upon all the Apostles, being in the corporate, and not upon Peter alone, being an individual. Finally, Jesus is saying He will build his church on an inclusive community of believers, such as both Jews and Gentiles alike, and not exclusively on Jewish believers.
In summary, Jesus would start with the Apostles as the first group of church leadership, use the Holy Spirit (intangible in human terms) to tie into the church ("His body") the true believers and finally, include people who acknowledge they are sinners, believe Jesus died for their sins, and come to Christ in repentance and surrender, and in doing so, by default be inclusive of Jews, Gentiles, and "every creature" as Jesus said in Mark 16:15.
In fact, with enough Bible study, it is likely one could support the above as the meaning of "the Rock" Jesus would build on, using dozens of Bible verses, starting with Ephesians 2:20 "And are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;"
So then changing the two letters in the Greek, "os" at the end of "petros" to an "a" resulting in "petra", changes doctrine that contradicts the Catholic church teaching that Peter was the first vicar. However, had Jesus said "petros" in both cases, then Peter would indeed be considered the first vicar of Christ.
So what would Peter think of all of this? I would think that after all was said and done, Peter was relieved he would work with a team of "professional" and experienced and Holy Spirit filled Apostles to reach the world and bring everyone they could into the "body of Christ" and not have to bear that responsibility all by himself.
There are hundreds of words with spelling changes that change doctrine in the Hort and Westcott GNT.
EXAMPLE FOUR:
Besides a few letters changing doctrine, word order can also do it too. Even though only a few languages used today recognize word order grammatically speaking, we often recognize when word order is changed for emphasis. Now in fact, in Koine Greek, Latin and some other languages, word order is used for emphasis, and even to a lessor degree, English. So in these languages, so that they can discern "fish eat I" as really "I eat fish," they have lettering in the nouns to indicate whether it is the subject or the object of the phase.
Now for example, in English we might write or say, "In his new car, to the beach, he drove," instead of "He drove to the beach in his new car." It is pretty obvious that the emphasis is first on the new car, then the beach as his destination, and finally driving the car, to complete the sentence.
So here is but one of many examples of where word order changes emphasis and thus changes doctrine.
In 1 John 2:27, the Stephanus GNT writes "in you (pl) abides" but Latin writes it as "abides in you (pl)" (and the Alexandrian texts follow the New Latin Vulgate word order). Well to the casual observer there is no difference. However, in the context there is a big difference between the anointing of the Holy Spirit being in you first, then to abide there, versus abiding first, and in you last the Holy Spirit, because of the emphasis. But what doctrine does this affect?
The difference in emphasis in the Stephanus GNT, is that the Holy Spirit and the believer are united as one, and then secondly, that is where the Spirit continues to abide. On the other hand, the New Latin Vulgate emphasis is on the abiding, and thus demotes the presence of the Holy Spirit's anointing. In the Latin, it is as if to say, especially since "you" is in the plural, the emphasis is on the Holy Spirit anointing the body of believers as a whole, and not individual believers having the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, Stephanus wants us to understand that each believer out of the body of believers has the Spirit present in them, and then only after knowing this, that is where the Spirit will continue to abide afterwards.
You see in the mind of many of the Catholics of the 4th century (and even today), individuals were not anointed internally by the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit was only in the midst of the congregation. Hence, the authors of Jerome's 4th century Latin text, changed the word order, to change the emphasis, especially since the plural "you" could be construed as the corporate body as a whole, and not the individuals within.
But the above is conjecture without evidence, so here is some evidence to show the interpretation.
Internally, the word translated "anointing" is in the neuter. This implies it is not corporate, because if it were, it would be in the feminine, but admittedly if it were in the masculine, it would be in the individual sense, but it is not that either. Thus in the neuter, the anointing might be applied both corporately as well as individually (or neither, but unlikely), but that does not help with word order, but as can be seen in the case of a neuter, word order can make a larger difference in the interpretation as to whether John is addressing individuals or the congregation as a whole. The neuter causes a "tie" of sorts.
By way of external evidence, we have the homilies of Augustine of the 4th century who discussed the anointing of the Spirit in believers in 1 John 2:27, in an individual manner, not in the corporate, that is, John was writing to the children of God, individually, and so used the plural only because to use the singular would make it sound like he was writing to only one individual. Thus we was writing more to "the individuals" than to "the people". Thus Augustine, albeit Catholic, had an honest assessment of the scriptures and thus communicated to his listeners that the Spirit's anointing was personal, not corporate. (See https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1702.htm )
The next evidence is in the letter of 1 John 2, itself, where John's admonitions are constantly addressed to individuals, albeit in the plural. And the majority of those admonitions can only be applied individually, and not to the corporate. For example, in 1 John 2:25, it addresses those that are saved in the plural, but clearly Jesus does not save the church-corporately, but individuals. Had it been in the singular, then Jesus would only be saving the one person John was writing to.
Then in verse 26, while a congregation can be seduced as a whole, in reality it is the individuals in a congregation that could be seduced, since seduction is an act upon mind of individuals, one-by-one. And in verse 28, which follows, John is addressing these individuals as "little children," which hardly treats these in the sense of the church-corporate, but as individuals who are growing in their faith as "little children". And certainly the part about not being ashamed applies to individuals and not the church-corporate.
Thus, the context indicates that John is emphasizing the anointing as one that is to be individual and not corporate, and thus to clarify this point writes literally in the Greek, "and in you, the anointing that ye did receive from him, in you doth remain... ". In fact, this is a quote from some literal translations. (BTW, you and ye are plural in the Greek.) Again, had John written literally "doth remain in you" the emphasis changes from the individuals, and opens the door to a corporate application of the anointing by the Spirit.
Indeed, many denominations deny the Spirit anoints individually, but rather does so only corporately. This is most likely because the leadership does not have a personal, internal, living presence of the Spirit, most likely because they are not "born of God."
So we see how word-order can affect doctrine, even if only subtly. And there are hundreds of cases of word-order differences between the Stephanus GNT and Hort and Westcott GNT, so there is the potential for hundreds of doctrinal differences.
Here are but a few more simple examples out of the many:
In Matthew 4:3, Stephanus writes: "came to him tempter saying"; but Latin/Alexandrian/H&W reads: "tempter to him came saying" (Wow! the tempter is more important than the Lord? ouch. And also, Stephanus emphasis is first on the verb, then on Jesus, then on the tempter, then on him speaking to Jesus, because when you give it some thought, the verb expresses the most important point, which is that God permitted the devil to even come to Christ to tempt Him in the first place. With "tempter" being first, it sounds like the tempter was in charge, even having more power than God, but we know that is not true. So the Latin/Alexandrian/H&W seems to be dubious at best, or worse, outright false doctrine.
In John 5:15, Stephanus writes: "worse thing to you occur"; but Latin/Alexandrian/H&W: "worse to you thing occur" (emphasis on "thing" or on "to you"? We believe to say "worse thing" is more serious than to whom it occurs.)
John 5:26 Stephanus: "he gave also to the son life"; Latin/Alexandrian/H&W: "also to the son he gave life" (emphasis on God or on "also"? and emphasis on "giving life" or one "to the son"? The Stephanus obviously follows divine inspiration.)
Summary of Evidence
Statistically, progressive deletions go from Latin to Alexandrian, and even to HWGNT, and even into virtually all modern translations (ex: begotten being missing), but there are very few additions, and the statistical evidence is that the vast majority of Catholic/Arian/Gnostic accommodation is via deletion, and so with that trend, Alexandrians accepted all the Catholic deletions, then deleted their own objectionable words/passages. The reverse order would have meant Catholics taking the Alexandrian text and adding back in text acceptable to Catholic doctrine, which is an illogical sequence, statistically speaking, based on the trend line. Logical progression rules.
Latin vestiges do not jump backward into a predecessor Greek from a successor Latin, so the Latin preceded the Alexandrian texts, in over 2400 verses (modern verse numbering).
It is well documented that the church at Rome fought off Arian doctrines so that “Against Heresies” was written by Irenaeus (about 180 AD) so the church at Rome would likely not use an Arian/Gnostic text as a basis for their new Latin text because of the risk of corrupting Catholic doctrine, or at least at the expense of making so much extra effort to correct doctrinal error, so the Alexandrian texts would be very objectionable to use by the church at Rome, and so were not.
Because of the many scriptural citations of Irenaeus, and others, even in the church at Rome, we know that certain words and verses that were there early one, were deleted or changed by Jerome or his proxies.
It is well documented that for 3 centuries the Old Latin texts were modified in Rome to accommodate Catholic doctrines as they evolved. So all Jerome did with respect to the NT was to produce from the “marked up” older Latin copies, a “clean” copy, with all the latest accommodations to Catholic doctrine.