The Reverend Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, LL.D. (September 29, 1813, Bermondsey

Bermondsey

Bermondsey is an area in London on the south bank of the river Thames, and is part of the London Borough of Southwark. To the west lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe, and to the south, Walworth and Peckham.-Toponomy:...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

 – October 30, 1891, Hendon

Hendon

Hendon is a London suburb situated northwest of Charing Cross.-History:Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday , but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the highest hill', is earlier...

, Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

) was an important text critic

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

 of the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version

Revised Version

The Revised Version of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. It was the first and remains the only officially authorized and recognized revision of the King James Bible. The work was entrusted to over 50 scholars from various denominations in Britain...

 of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

. He was prebendary

Prebendary

A prebendary is a post connected to an Anglican or Catholic cathedral or collegiate church and is a type of canon. Prebendaries have a role in the administration of the cathedral...

 of Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

, and vicar

Vicar

In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...

 of Hendon.

Graduating from Trinity College

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

, Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 in 1835 after studying at Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

, he became a teacher of classics at a number of schools in southern England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and from 1846 to 1856 was headmaster of a school in Falmouth, Cornwall

Falmouth, Cornwall

Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....

. He was also for 15 years rector of Gerrans

Gerrans

Gerrans is a coastal civil parish and village on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village adjoins Portscatho on the east side of the peninsula...

, Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

.

Initially making a name for himself editing the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis

Codex Bezae

The Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, designated by siglum Dea or 05 , δ 5 , is a codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century written in an uncial hand on vellum. It contains, in both Greek and Latin, most of the four Gospels and Acts, with a small fragment of the 3 John...

, Scrivener edited several editions of the New Testament and collated the Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...

with the Textus Receptus

Textus Receptus

Textus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...

. For his services to textual criticism

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

 and the understanding of Biblical manuscripts, he was granted a Civil list

Civil list

-United Kingdom:In the United Kingdom, the Civil List is the name given to the annual grant that covers some expenses associated with the Sovereign performing their official duties, including those for staff salaries, State Visits, public engagements, ceremonial functions and the upkeep of the...

 pension in 1872. He was an advocate of the Byzantine text

Byzantine text-type

The Byzantine text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts. It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts, though not in the oldest...

 (majority text) over more modern manuscripts as a source for Bible translations

Bible translations

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Indeed, the full Bible has been translated into over 450 languages, although sections of the Bible have been translated into over 2,000 languages....

. He was the first to distinguish the Textus Receptus from the Byzantine text. Scrivener compared the Textus Receptus with the editions of Stephanus

Robert Estienne

Robert I Estienne , known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin and also referred to as Robert Stephens by 18th and 19th-century English writers, was a 16th century printer and classical scholar in Paris...

 (1550), Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza

Theodore Beza was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation...

 (1565), and Elzevier (1633) and enumerated all the differences. In addition he identified the differences between the Textus Receptus and editions by Lachmann

Karl Lachmann

Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann was a German philologist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Brunswick, in what is now Lower Saxony....

, Tregelles

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was an English biblical scholar, textual critic, and theologian.- Life :Tregelles was born at Wodehouse Place, Falmouth, of Quaker parents, but he himself for many years was in communion with the Plymouth Brethren and then later in life became a Presbyterian...

, and Tischendorf

Constantin von Tischendorf

Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf was a noted German Biblical scholar. He deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th century Greek manuscript of the New Testament, in the 1840s, and rediscovered the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century New Testament manuscript, in 1859.Tischendorf...

. Scrivener doubted the authenticity of texts like Matthew 16:2b–3, Christ's agony at Gethsemane

Christ's agony at Gethsemane

Christ's agony at Gethsemane is a passage in the Gospel of Luke , describing a prayer of Jesus, after which he receives strength from an angel, on the Mount of Olives prior to his betrayal and arrest...

, John 5:3.4, Pericope Adulterae.

In 1874, he became prebendary of Exeter and vicar of Hendon

Hendon

Hendon is a London suburb situated northwest of Charing Cross.-History:Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday , but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the highest hill', is earlier...

, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Works

• A Supplement to the Authorized English Version of the New Testament: Being a Critical Illustration of its More Difficult Passages from the Syriac, Latin, and Earlier English Versions, with an Introduction, 1845.
• Contributions to the criticism of the Greek New Testament: being the introduction to an edition of the Codex Augiensis and Fifty other Manuscripts (Cambridge: 1859)
• A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament
  A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament
  A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament: For the Use of Biblical Students is one of the books of Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener , biblical scholar and textual critic. In this book Scrivener listed over 3,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, as well as manuscripts of...
  
  , 1861, 1894.
• A Full Collation of the Sinaitic MS. with the Received Text of the New Testament. 1864.
• A full and exact collation of Codex Sinaiticus, 1864.
• http://www.archive.org/details/bezaecodexcanta00cambgoogBezae Codex Cantabrigiensis: being an exact Copy, in ordinary Type, of the celebrated Uncial Graeco-Latin Manuscript of the Four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, written early in the Sixth Century, and presented to the University of Cambridge by Theodore Beza A.D. 1581. Edited, with a critical Introduction, Annotations, and Facsimiles], 1864.
• Six Lectures on the Text of the New Testament and the Ancient Manuscripts which contain it, Deighton, Bell, and Co: Cambridge; London, 1875.
• Novum Testamentum : textus Stephanici A.D. 1550 : accedunt variae lectiones editionum Bezae, Elzeviri, Lachmanni, Tischendorfii, Tregellesii (Cambridge 1877).
• The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorized Version, together with the Variations adopted in the Revised Version, 1881.
• Novum Testamentum : Textus Stephanici A.D. 1550 : accedunt variae lectiones editionum Bezae, Elzeviri, Lachmanni, Tischendorfii, Tregellesii, Westcott-Hort, Versionis Anglicanae Emendatorum (1887).
• A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, for the Use of Biblical Students (published posthumously and coauthored by Edward Miller
  Edward Miller
  -Politics:*Edward Allan Miller , Canadian politician*Edward B. Miller , Deputy Chief of Staff to Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich*Edward E. Miller , U.S. Representative from Illinois...
  
  ), 1894.