Sat Apr 27 18:56:14 1996

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From: "Dave Washburn" 
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Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 16:53:13 -7
Subject: Re: Waite just a minute
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"Mark E. Burrill"  asked:
> Can anyone comment on the legitimacy of the work of Dr. D.A. Waite? 

I used to read a newsletter put out by Waite, back when I first got 
into textual criticism while in college.  The newsletter was called 
"The Dean Burgon News" and it was published by what was essentially a 
one-man organization called "The Dean Burgon Society."  He would 
write multi-part articles with headers such as "Part 1 of 27 parts," 
which was irritating enough; but then  every line in the 
newspaper-column format was punctuated with bold print, words in all 
caps, underlining, and other various ways of shouting.  

The articles always said the same thing over and over: I'm right and 
everybody else is wrong.  The King James was good enough for John the 
Baptist so it's good enough for me and anybody who doesn't revere the 
King James is going straight to hell.  No evidence, no scholarship, 
no examination of the materials, just ranting and raving about how 
great the King James is and how evil Westcott and Hort were.  Every 
other word was emphasized in some way; it frequently reminded me of 
the old story about the notes in the margin of the preacher's 
outline: "Theology weak here--yell like crazy!"

Oh, yes, about the "Dr." part: something he doesn't advertise in his 
writings or his interviews is that his doctorate has nothing to do 
with textual criticism, Greek or anything else related to the 
biblical materials; it's in speech.

Every time I received a "Dean Burgon News" I suspected that Burgon 
was doing back-flips in his grave about the absurdities being 
committed in his name.
Dave
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html
"If you love something, set it free.  If it returns, 
you haven't lost it.  If it disappears and never comes back,
then it wasn't truly yours to begin with.  And if it just
sits there watching television, unaware that it's been set
free, you probably already married it."

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