Pauline Epistle Postscripts in the KJV

[biscuit1953]

Who added them?  Are they considered accurate?

 

[logos1560]

    Ross Purdy suggested that two other “examples of the [KJV] translators’ bias will be seen in the postscripts to two of Paul’s epistles” (I Will Have, p. 63). 

At the end of 2 Timothy in the 1611 edition of the KJV, the postscript referred to Timothy as “ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Ephesians.” 

At the end of Titus in the 1611 KJV, the postscript referred to Titus as “ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Cretians.” 

Bishop Thomas Bilson, co-editor of the 1611 KJV, in his book defending Episcopal church government and apostolic succession maintained that Timothy and Titus were bishops (Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, pp. 302-303, 341, 388).  Bilson wrote:  “If succession of Episcopal power came from the apostles to them [Timothy and Titus], and so to their successors, we shall soon conclude that bishops came from the apostles” (p. 302).  Bilson asserted:  “We infer this power must be perpetual in bishops, for they succeed Timothy in the church” (p. 391).  Bilson contended:  “St. Paul committed that power and care to Timothy and his successors” (p. 406).  Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book claimed that “it is very apparent and cannot be denied, that in many Greek copies of the New Testament, Timothy and Titus are termed bishops in the directions or subscriptions of two epistles which St. Paul did write unto them (pp. 145-146).  In this same book, KJV translator John Overall referred to Timothy and Titus as “two apostolical bishops newly designed unto their Episcopal functions” (p. 140). 

James Lillie maintained that the Church of England uses these postscripts “to prove her order of bishops” (Bishops, p. 3). 

Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstowe maintained that “our Episcopal men of late in newer impressions enlarged their phylacteries, in putting those postscripts in the same full character with that of the text, that the simple might believe they are canonical Scripture” (Smectymnuus, p. 45).  Concerning these postscripts, Ross Purdy asserted:  “The bias of the King James Version ’translators’ towards prelates (i.e., a hierarchy of ruling prelates/bishops is quite obvious” (I Will Have, p. 64). 

John Davenport asserted that the postscript to 2 Timothy and to Titus “are apocryphal” (Power, p. 80).  John Brown maintained:  “These postscripts are of no weight; are of no divine authority; but were added, at least in their present form, ages after their [referring to Timothy and Titus] death, by some imposter” (Letters, p. 42). 

While the 1560 Geneva Bible also included a postscript to 2 Timothy, its rendering does not indicate as much Episcopal bias.  The Geneva Bible postscript referred to “Timotheus the first bishop elected, of the Church of Ephesus.”  Haak’s 1657 English translation of the 1637 Dutch Annotations had this note after the postscript at the end of 2 Timothy:  “These subscriptions even as it is uncertain who set them down, so their truth is also uncertain.”  At the end of 2 Timothy, Theodore Haak noted or translated: “(The Epistle) to Titus, the first elected overseer [Gr. EPISCOPON; that Titus was an evangelist, sent to and fro by the apostles to spread abroad the gospel, is indeed collected out of the Scriptures; but not that he was anywhere a Bishop, as they are at this day called amongst the Papists].” 

These misleading postscripts used to advocate Episcopal church government remain in some [perhaps all] KJV editions printed at Cambridge and Oxford in Great Britain, but they are not found in a number of KJV editions printed in America.  Do KJV-only advocates believe those words of the postscripts as the KJV translators did and do they assert that these postscripts should be printed in the KJV editions that they recommend?  Some KJV-only advocates recommend as the perfect standard Cambridge KJV editions that include these Episcopal postscripts.   

   

 

[biscuit1953]

Thanks.  I always wondered why it was only the Pauline epistles that had them.

 

[prophet]

Act 20:17
17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.

1Ti 1:3
3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine,.


Timothy was something at Ephesus.

Although, I have yet to find a Bilical example of, or mandate to electing a man to be the singular leader of a church. It seems that Tim and Titus were being touted as popish bishops, overseeing the other elders, in these footnotes, but that just may be inferred, and not actual.

This would be more likely: Phi 1:1
Philippians
Chapter 1
1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

Here we have bishops in the plural, in a church, which is apparently God's original intention.

Anishinaabe

 

[Mitex]

Act 20:17
17 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.

1Ti 1:3
3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine,.
...
This would be more likely:
Phi 1:1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

Here we have bishops in the plural, in a church, which is apparently God's original intention.

Anishinaabe

Plurality is the correct form - Bishops, elders, overseers.

 

[logos1560]

Plurality is the correct form - Bishops, elders, overseers.

Not according to the makers of the KJV, who argued for apostolic succession for a singular bishop over several or many local churches.

Firsthand evidence was given where a KJV translator John Overall asserted that the postscripts at the end of the pastoral epistles that claimed that Timothy was a bishop [singular] and that Titus was a bishop [singular] was written by the apostle Paul.

 

[Mitex]

Plurality is the correct form - Bishops, elders, overseers.

Not according to the makers of the KJV, who argued for apostolic succession for a singular bishop over several or many local churches.

Firsthand evidence was given where a KJV translator John Overall asserted that the postscripts at the end of the pastoral epistles that claimed that Timothy was a bishop [singular] and that Titus was a bishop [singular] was written by the apostle Paul.

That is correct Sherlock, Timothy was "a Bishop", so was Paul and others - they were Bishops. Timothy was "a Bishop" and Titus was "a Bishop" they were Bishops.

Barry was "a pastor" who worked with another pastor - they were pastors. They were bishops in the same church.