Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener


Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener was a New Testament textual critic and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible. He was prebendary of Exeter, and vicar of Hendon.
Graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1835 after studying at Southwark, he became a teacher of classics at a number of schools in southern England, and from 1846 to 1856 was headmaster of a school in Falmouth, Cornwall. He was also for 15 years rector of Gerrans, Cornwall.
Initially making a name for himself editing the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, Scrivener edited several editions of the New Testament and collated the Codex Sinaiticus with the Textus Receptus. For his services to textual criticism and the understanding of biblical manuscripts, he was granted a Civil list pension in 1872. He was an advocate of the Byzantine text over more modern manuscripts as a source for Bible translations. He was the first to distinguish the Textus Receptus from the Byzantine text. Scrivener compared the Textus Receptus with the editions of Stephanus, Theodore Beza, and Elzevier and enumerated all the differences. In addition he identified the differences between the Textus Receptus and editions by Lachmann, Tregelles, and Tischendorf. Scrivener doubted the authenticity of texts like, Christ's agony at Gethsemane, John 5:3.4, and the Pericope Adulterae.
In 1874, he became prebendary of Exeter and vicar of Hendon, where he remained for the rest of his life.

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