In 2002, on the Ankerberg show James White said:
“But to Dr. Strouse, what about places where those King James translators followed conjectural emendations? Theodore Beza, for example, in Revelation 16:5 looked at the Greek text and all the Greek texts say the same thing, but he didn’t like the way it went. And so he changed the word “holy” to the future form of the verb “to be,” sort of, to make it nice and poetic and rhythmic. And your King James this day reads that way, even though there’s not a question about it on anyone’s part as to what that passage actually reads. Why should I take Theodore Beza’s conjectural emendation where he decides a reading on the basis of what he likes and say that the mass of Christians believe this when nobody before Theodore Beza ever had the idea that Revelation 16:5 read that way? Why should I believe that?”
(The King James Controversy Revisited - 2002, on the Ankerberg show, with Dr. Kenneth Barker, Dr. Don Wilkins, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, Dr. James White, Dr. Samuel Gipp, Dr. Thomas Strouse, Dr. Joseph Chambers.)
James White said that Theodore Beza had “changed the word...to make it nice and poetic and rhythmic” and “there’s not a question about it on anyone’s part as to what that passage actually reads”. Obviously this verse is one of the rare verses in Beza and the KJV where the majority reading in the manuscripts is at odds with what was printed (which is rare for KJV/TR readings, but not for CT readings). But is it true that nobody before Theodore Beza ever had the idea that Revelation 16:5 read that way?
Besides the Ethiopic mentioned in the previous blog, if we go back, it seems the seeds sown for Beza’s intervention against ὅσιος and for ἐσόμενος also included the scholarship of Erasmus. Erasmus said concerning Revelation 16:5 in his 1535 Annotations:
Qui es, & qui eras.) Quanquam interpres mutauit perfonam, tamen to tidem syllabis dictu est, quibus superius, qui est, qui erat, qui uenturus est, ὁ ὢν, ὁ ἦν ὁ ἐρχόμενος.
Translated as:
Thou, who art, and who wast.) Although the interpreter changed form, however to flow with the list mentioned above, who is, who was, who is to come, ὁ ὢν, ὁ ἦν ὁ ἐρχόμενος.
Erasmus’ 1535 Annotations
Although Erasmus used ἐρχόμενος and not ἐσόμενος, the meaning is very similar, and both usurp the awkward reading of ὅσιος. This is challenging and discursive to those who have claimed Beza grabbed his “conjectural emendation” out of thin air.
Isaac Newton in 1693 saw that Erasmus had ἐρχόμενος in his notes on Revelation 16:5:
καὶ ὁ ἦν, καὶ ὁ ὅσιος Erasm. \Syr. Primas/ At in Notis Erasmus pro ὅσιος legit ἐρχόμενος
καὶ ὁ ἦν, καὶ ὁ ἐσόμενος Bezæ codex antiquus.
The underlined translates as:
“At the Notes Erasmus for ὅσιος read ἐρχόμενος”
('Variantes Lectiones Apocalypticae' [version 1])
The very learned King James translators disagree with White on this issue. They left no note or italic as they did on other verses revealing their certainty of this reading. But many other notable scholars and translators of the reformation also nominated the reading. The fact remains that White is not simply attacking the scholarship of the 57 - 60 KJV translators, or Beza, but an entire generation of scholarship.
Theodore Beza was a world class expert in the Greek language. Having provided so much material on the bible, from translating the French bible, Geneva Bible, Geneva French, including many Greek editions, commentaries, dictionaries, and so much literature on the Greek and Hebrew biblical text for so many years, I would suggest that Beza’s familiarity with the text and with similar issues, demonstrated to him that this was an error and to reject his reading one should firstly show that they are on the same level of scholarship as Beza, or the KJV translators to provide an adequate refutation.
The 1637 Dutch Statenvertaling which is renown to be an equivalent of the King James Version in the Dutch language, has the same reading of Beza and the KJV in Revelation 16:5:
En ik hoorde den engel der wateren zeggen: Gij zijt rechtvaardig, Heere! Die is, en Die was, en Die zijn zal, dat Gij dit geoordeeld hebt;
Translated to read:
And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord! Who is and who was and who will be, because thou hast judged;
Renown linguist Elias Hutter's also used ἐρχόμενος in Revelation 16:5. The Nuremberg Polyglot a New Testament Polyglot in twelve languages of 1599, which has a similar reading to Beza & Erasmus in the Greek, which differs from Beza in many other places:
Kαὶ ἤκουσα τοῦ ἀγγέλου τῶν ὑδάτων λέγοντος, δίκαιος, κύριε, εἶ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὅτι ταῦτα ἔκρινας·
καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος in Hutter's 1599 Nuremberg Polyglot.
Hutter has ἐρχόμενος while Beza has ἐσόμενος. Hutter’s ἐρχόμενος translates as is to come (see Revelation 1:4) while ἐσόμενος means shalt be, or will be.
(Novum Testamentum Domini: nostri: Iesu. Christi. Syriacè, Ebraicè, Graecè, Latinè, Germanicè, Bohemicè, Italicè, Hispanicè, Gallicè, Anglicè, Danicè, Polonicè. 2 vols. Edited by Elias Hutter and Jacob Coler.)
So we can see that Beza is certainly not alone in rejecting the awkward reading “and holy one”. It seems that the top echelon of biblical scholarship agree with Beza. Esrasmus, the translators of the 1549 Ethiopic bible, the King James Version translators, the Dutch Statenvertaling translators, Elias Hutter, the list is rather impressive. Even the Elzevir family in their 1633 Textus Receptus has ἐσόμενος. So James White’s claim that “there’s not a question about it on anyone’s part as to what that passage actually reads” is historically wrong. There were, and are, many very credible people who question such places where grammatical errors and awkward readings exist in biblical mss.
For more information see the Textus Receptus website on Revelation 16:5.
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