Causes of Corruption of the New Testament Text
John William Burgon was born August 21, 1813. He matriculated at Oxford in 1841, taking several high honors there, and his B.A. 1845. He took his M.A. there in 1848...the thing about Burgon, however, which lifts him out of the nineteenth century English setting and endears him to the hearts of earnest Christians of other lands and other ages is his steadfast defense of the scriptures as the infallible Word of God. He strove with all his power to arrest the modernistic currents which during his lifetime had begun to flow within the Church of England, continuing his efforts with unabated zeal up to the very day of his death. With this purpose in mind he labored mightily in the field of New Testament textual criticism.  In 1860, while temporary chaplain of the English congregation at Rome, he made a personal examination of Codex B (Vaticanus), and in 1862 he inspected the treasures of St. Catherine's Convent on Mt. Sinai. Later he made several tours of European libraries, examining and collating New Testament manuscripts wherever he went...Of all the critics of the nineteenth century Burgon alone was consistently Christian in his vindication of the Divine inspiration and providential preservation of the text of Holy Scripture.