The Critical text (if that is your preferred text) was born out of unitarian influence, and liberals and German Rationalism.
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No, it was not. Even if there is a mote of Unitarian influence in the text (which has NOT been proven), that doesn't mean the text was "born out of" that influence.
You are taking my original statement out of context and turning it into a claim I did not make.
What I actually said was:
“The Critical text, if that is your preferred text, was born out of Unitarian influence, and liberals and German Rationalism.”
I did not imply or say that Unitarianism was the Modern Bible Movement's only influence. I specifically named Unitarian influence, liberals, and German Rationalism as influences within the nineteenth-century textual-critical environment out of which the Critical Text movement developed. So reducing my statement to whether there was merely a “mote” of Unitarian influence does not accurately represent what I said.
Furthermore, the claim that Unitarian influence “has NOT been proven” is simply not historically sustainable.
George Vance Smith was a Unitarian minister and scholar who was actually appointed to the British New Testament Revision Company that produced the Revised Version of 1881. A history published by Manchester College, itself a Unitarian institution, says plainly that Smith was appointed “as the Unitarian member” of the New Testament Revision Committee. He was not an outsider commenting on the work afterward. He sat on the committee with Westcott, Hort, Scrivener, Lightfoot, and the other revisers and participated extensively in its work.
After the Revised New Testament appeared, Smith published a book entitled
Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine, Briefly Reviewed. It was published in 1881 by the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. In that book Smith specifically examined changes in the Revised Version that affected traditional Christian doctrine and that favored his Unitarian position.
Smith did not agree with the modern claim that the changes were doctrinally insignificant. After discussing them, he described the changes he had enumerated as “wholly unfavourable to the popular theology.”
Look at some of the changes he himself highlighted.
At 1 Timothy 3:16, the KJV reads:
“God was manifest in the flesh.”
The Revised Version changed this to:
“He who was manifested in the flesh.”
Smith defended the rejection of “God” and argued that the older reading resulted from the growing tendency among early Christians to regard Jesus as the incarnate Word and consequently as “God manifested in the flesh.” That is not me imposing theological significance on the change. The Unitarian reviser himself recognized its connection with belief in Christ as God and defended the reading that removed the explicit word “God.”
Smith also singled out the disappearance of 1 John 5:7, where the KJV reads:
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
The Revised Version removed the heavenly witnesses from its text. Smith included this among the changes he regarded as doctrinally important and ultimately characterized the collection of changes he had discussed as “wholly unfavourable to the popular theology.”
He also specifically praised the significance of the Revised Version's change at Philippians 2:10. The KJV says:
“At the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”
The Revised Version changed this to:
“In the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”
Smith argued that the KJV wording had apparently implied religious worship or adoration of Christ, while the Revision removed that implication. He then went on to argue that the New Testament did not actually sanction the religious worship of Jesus Christ. Again, this is a Unitarian member of the Revision Company himself explaining why he regarded a change away from the KJV as theologically important.
Smith's relationship with Westcott and Hort was hardly one of theological isolation either. Smith received Communion at the opening Communion service connected with the revisers, a service promoted by Westcott, despite Smith's openly Unitarian position. When controversy arose over Smith's participation, Westcott resisted efforts to remove him, and Hort later spoke approvingly of “our welcoming an Unitarian.”
Then there was Ezra Abbot in America. The
New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge explicitly identifies Abbot as a “Unitarian layman.” He was one of the original members of the American New Testament Revision Company and one of the leading American textual critics of his generation.
And here we do not have to speculate about whether Abbot exercised influence.
New Schaff-Herzog says concerning the critical papers he prepared on disputed passages that they “had no small influence in determining the text finally accepted.”
That is direct historical testimony. An acknowledged Unitarian textual critic served on the American New Testament Revision Company, prepared detailed textual-critical studies concerning disputed readings, and those studies were influential enough that a major historical reference work says they had “no small influence” in determining the text finally accepted. His textual work was also communicated to the British revisers.
Then there is Joseph Henry Thayer, who was also a unitarian. He was another member of the American Bible Revision Committee and later one of the most influential Greek lexicographers in the English-speaking world. Thayer's
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament was not merely a translation of Grimm. Thayer revised and enlarged it and explained that bracketed material identified additions made by the American editor, meaning himself.
And in those additions Thayer repeatedly redirected readers to the textual and exegetical arguments of the Unitarian Ezra Abbot at major Christological passages.
At Romans 9:5, where the question is whether Christ is being called “God blessed for ever,” Thayer directs his readers to Abbot's treatment of the passage. Abbot argued against understanding those words as directly identifying Christ as God.
Thayer's actual entry can be checked here:
https://biblehub.com/thayers/2128.htm
Notice that Thayer specifically directs readers to the discussion by Dwight and Abbot and then says, “See Prof. Abbot's careful exposition.”
At Titus 2:13, Thayer went further and specifically recommended what he called Professor Abbot's “thorough exposition.” Abbot argued against construing the passage as directly identifying Jesus Christ as “the great God.”
Thayer's actual entry can be checked here:
https://biblehub.com/thayers/2015.htm
The wording is particularly important because the recommendation appears in Thayer's bracketed editorial material:
“but esp. the thorough exposition by Prof. Abbot...”
So Thayer was not merely citing a Unitarian scholar somewhere in a bibliography. In his own editorial additions to an enormously influential Greek lexicon, he was directing New Testament students to Ezra Abbot's Unitarian-friendly exegesis at disputed passages concerning whether Jesus Christ is explicitly called God.
And before you respond that the Revision Companies were only working on an English translation rather than publishing an entirely new Greek New Testament, the Revisers themselves addressed that distinction in their 1881 Preface. They stated:
“A revision of the Greek text was the necessary foundation of our work.”
They explained that although they were not attempting to publish a complete continuous Greek text, they still had to decide between competing Greek readings whenever those differences affected the English translation. The English Revised Version was therefore being changed from the KJV on the basis of textual decisions about which Greek readings the revisers believed should be followed. Scrivener subsequently published the Greek readings adopted by the Revised Version precisely because those textual decisions could be identified.
So the fact that Smith and Abbot were officially working on an English Revision does not somehow disconnect them from the underlying textual question. The English was being revised to conform to a different set of Greek readings in numerous places, and Unitarians participated in and influenced that revision process.
That matters when we are discussing whether Unitarian influence existed within this nineteenth-century textual-critical environment. We have George Vance Smith directly involved in the British Revision, openly praising changes away from the KJV that favored his Unitarian theology; Ezra Abbot, an acknowledged Unitarian textual critic whose work had “no small influence in determining the text finally accepted”; and Thayer (a unitarian) subsequently directing Greek students to Abbot's arguments at important Christological passages.
You may dispute how large that influence was or whether the resulting textual decisions were correct, but saying that Unitarian influence “has NOT been proven” is simply contradicted by the historical evidence.
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