Lectures on Bible Revision
by Samuel Newth · English · Gutenberg #42514 · 491,913 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Lectures on Bible Revision
Author: Samuel Newth
Release date: April 12, 2013 [eBook #42514]
Language: English
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LECTURES ON BIBLE REVISION.
With an Appendix
CONTAINING THE PREFACES TO THE CHIEF HISTORICAL
EDITIONS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
BY SAMUEL NEWTH, M.A., D.D.,
PRINCIPAL, AND LEE PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, NEW COLLEGE, LONDON;
MEMBER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT COMPANY OF REVISERS.
LONDON:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLXXXI.
[_All rights reserved._]
PREFACE.
The following work is especially intended for Sunday-school and
Bible-class teachers, and for such others as from any cause may be unable
to consult many books or to read lengthened treatises. It has seemed to me
to be of great importance that those who are engaged in the responsible
service of teaching the young, and to whom the Bible is the constant
source of appeal, should be able both to take up an intelligent position
in regard to the new revision of the English Scriptures, and to meet the
various enquiries that will be made respecting it by those about them. I
have therefore endeavoured to provide for their use, in a compendious
form, a survey of the general argument for revision, and of the facts
which exhibit the present duty of Christian men in relation thereto. In
the execution of this purpose it has been necessary to direct attention to
the chief stages in the growth of the English Bible, but this has been
done only so far as seemed to be requisite for the illustration of the
main argument. Those who may desire to study this part of the subject more
at length are referred to the full and interesting volumes of Dr. Eadie,
or to the convenient manuals published by Dr. Moulton and by Dr.
Stoughton. Such as may wish to investigate more minutely the internal
history of the Authorized Version will find Dr. Westcott’s _General View
of the History of the English Bible_ a most trustworthy and invaluable
guide.
In the Appendix I have brought together the prologues or prefaces to the
chief historical editions of the English Bible. Some of these are not of
easy access to ordinary readers, while all are of deep and lasting
interest. They will abundantly repay a careful perusal. The reader will
thereby, more readily than in any other way, come into personal contact
with the noble men to whose self-denying labours our country and the world
are so deeply indebted; will learn what was the spirit which animated
them, and what were the aims and methods of their toil; and, in addition
to much wise instruction respecting the study of the word of God, will
learn how the deepest love and reverence for the Bible are not only
tolerant of changes in its outward form, but will indeed imperatively
demand them whenever needed for the more faithful exhibition of the truth
it enshrines.
It has formed no part of my purpose either to exhibit or to justify the
changes which have been made in the revision in which I have had the
honour and the responsibility of sharing. The former will best be learnt
from the perusal of the Revised Version itself; the latter it would be
unbecoming in me to undertake. The ultimate decision respecting them must
rest upon the concurrent judgment of the wisest and most learned; and they
who are the most competent to judge will be the least hasty in giving
judgment, for they best know how difficult and delicate is the
translator’s task, and how manifold, and sometimes how subtle, are the
various considerations which determine his rendering. Nor indeed would any
such attempt be possible within the limits I have here assigned to myself.
To be properly done it would require an appeal to special learning which
I have no right to assume in my readers, and to habits of scholarly
investigation which I may not presuppose. To the bulk of my readers the
one justification for the changes they will discover in the Revised New
Testament must practically rest in the fact that those who have for more
than ten years conscientiously and diligently laboured in this matter, and
who have with such anxious care revised and re-revised their work, have
been constrained to the conclusion that in this way they would most
faithfully and clearly present the sense of the sacred Word. May He whose
word it is graciously accept their service, and deign to use it for His
glory.
NEW COLLEGE,
_April 26, 1881_.
CONTENTS.
Page
LECTURE I. SUBSTANCE AND FORM 1
LECTURE II. THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 11
LECTURE III. THE FURTHER GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE 25
LECTURE IV. THE REVISION OF 1611. THE SO-CALLED AUTHORIZED VERSION 39
LECTURE V. REVISION A RECURRING NECESSITY 51
LECTURE VI. ON THE IMPERFECT RENDERINGS INTRODUCED OR RETAINED IN
THE REVISION OF 1611 61
LECTURE VII. ON THE ORIGINAL TEXTS AS KNOWN IN 1611, AND AS NOW
KNOWN 79
LECTURE VIII. THE PREPARATIONS FOR FURTHER REVISION MADE DURING
THE PAST TWO CENTURIES 91
LECTURE IX. THE REVISION OF 1881 105
APPENDIX.
(A.) PURVEY’S PROLOGUE TO THE WYCLIFFITE BIBLE. CH. XV. 129
(B.) TYNDALE’S PROLOGUES 137
(C.) COVERDALE’S PROLOGUE TO HIS BIBLE OF 1535 160
(D.) PREFACE TO THE GENEVAN BIBLE. 1560 172
(E.) PREFACE TO THE BISHOPS’ BIBLE. 1568 177
(F.) PREFACE TO THE REVISION OF 1611 199
(G.) THE REVISERS OF 1568 235
(H.) THE REVISERS OF 1611 237
LECTURES ON BIBLE REVISION.
LECTURE I.
_SUBSTANCE AND FORM._
There are probably devout persons not a few in whose minds the mere
suggestion of a Revision of the Scriptures arouses a feeling of mingled
pain and surprise. In that Bible which they received from their fathers in
the trustful confidence of childhood, they have heard the voice of God
speaking to their souls. Not from any testimony given to them by others,
but from their own lengthened and varied experience of it, they know it to
be the Father’s gift unto His children. It has quickened, guided, and
strengthened them, as no human words had ever done, answering the deepest
cravings of their nature, stimulating them to endeavours after a nobler
life, and enkindling within them the confidence of a sure and blessed
hope. That it is from heaven, and not from men, they know, not because of
what has been told them, but from what they themselves have seen and
learnt; and they need no further evidence of its inspiration than the fact
that it has opened their eyes to a knowledge of themselves, and to a
perception of the loveliness of Christ. That any should dare to meddle
with a book so precious and so honoured, seems to them a sacrilegious act,
and a Revision of the Holy Scriptures is to them a presumptuous attempt to
improve upon the handiwork of God.
In this feeling there is much with which every Christian man will warmly
sympathize; but there is in it also something that calls for correction
and instruction. There is need here, as elsewhere, of careful thought and
self-discipline, lest, by confounding things that differ, we transfer our
reverence for what is God-given and divine to what is only human, and
therefore fallible. A little consideration will suffice to show that, in
such a matter as this, it is peculiarly important to distinguish between
substance and form, between what is essential and permanent and what is
accidental and variable. By the substance of the Bible we mean the
statements which, in various ways and diverse manners, it presents to our
thoughts; the precepts and the promises, the histories and the prophecies,
the doctrines and the prayers, the truths about God and about man, through
which our minds are instructed, our consciences enlightened, and our
hearts established by grace. By the form of the Bible, we mean the signs
or sounds by which the various statements contained in the Bible are
presented to us, and which are, as it were, the channel through which the
truths it teaches are conveyed to our minds. It will be obvious upon the
least consideration, that the kind and degree of reverence which it is
right to entertain towards the form of Scripture, is very different from
that which it behoves us to cherish for the substance of Scripture.
Respecting the latter, it is fitting to watch with all jealousy that no
man add unto it or take from it; it is precious for its own sake. Not so,
however, with the former; its worth is not in itself, but only in that
which it enshrines. The two sentences--
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners,”
“Gwir yw’r gair ac yn haeddu pob derbyniad, ddyfod Crist Iesu i’r byd i
gadw pechaduriaid,”
are very different in form, whether judged by the eye or the ear, and yet
the truth conveyed by the former to an Englishman, or by the latter to a
Welshman, is essentially the same. And although one who had learnt to
prize that truth under either of the forms here given would naturally
cherish also the very words by which it had been taught him, his reverence
for the truth would impel him to adopt the other form in preference
whenever that might be the better instrument for conveying it to another.
Changes, therefore, in the form of Scripture may be lawful and right.
Moreover, as a matter of history, the form of Scripture has, from the very
beginning, been passing through a continued succession of changes, and
with this fact it is most important that the Bible student should
familiarize himself. These changes may be arranged under two general
classes.
One class of changes has arisen out of the perishable nature of the
documents, of which the Bible at the first consisted.
It is scarcely needful to state that we do not now possess the original
copies of any of the books of the Old or the New Testament. Even while
these were still in existence it was necessary to transcribe them in order
that many persons in many places might possess and read them. In the work
of transcription, however careful the transcriber might have been, errors
of various kinds necessarily arose; some from mistaking one letter for
another; some from failure of memory, if the scribe were writing from
dictation; and some from occasional oversight, if he were writing from a
copy before him; some from momentary lapses of attention, when his hand
wrote on without his guidance; and some from an attempt to correct a real
or fancied error in the work of his predecessor. If any of my readers will
make an experiment by copying a passage of some length from any printed
book, and then hand over his manuscript to a friend with a request to copy
it, and afterwards pass on the copy so made to a third, and so on in
succession through a list of ten or a dozen persons, each copying the
manuscript of the one before him in the list, he will, on comparing the
last with the printed book, have a vivid and interesting illustration of
the number and kind of variations that arise in the process of
transcription. In the case, therefore, of even very early copies of any of
the books of the Scriptures, some sort of revision would become necessary,
and the deeper the reverence for the book, the more obligatory would the
duty of making such a revision be felt to be, and the more earnestly and
readily would it be undertaken. So long as the original copies were in
existence and accessible this work of revision would be comparatively easy
and simple. It would call only for the ability to make careful and patient
comparison. But when the originals could no longer be appealed to, and
when, moreover, successive transcription had gone on through many
generations, the work would become much more complex and difficult,
calling for much knowledge and much persevering research, for a mind
skilled in the appreciation of evidence, and able to judge calmly between
conflicting testimony. At the same time, the need for revision would to
some extent be greater than before. I say to some extent, because the
natural multiplication of errors arising from successive transcription
through many centuries, has in the case of the Scriptures been very
largely checked. The special reverence felt for this book beyond other
books led to the exercise of special care in the preparation of Biblical
manuscripts, and special precautions were taken to guard them as far as
possible from any variation. Owing to these and other causes a larger
measure of uniformity is found in the later than in the earlier
manuscripts now extant.
A second class of changes in the form of the Scriptures has arisen from
the natural growth and development of language.
The earliest Bible of which we have any historical knowledge was in the
form of a roll, made probably of skins, containing the five books of
Moses, and written in the Hebrew language. This was described as “the Book
of the Law of the Lord given by Moses” (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14); more briefly
as “the Book of the Law of Moses” (Joshua viii. 31; 2 Kings xiv. 6; Neh.
viii. 1), or as “the Book of the Law of God” (Neh. viii. 8); and more
briefly still as “the Book of the Law” (2 Kings xxii. 8), or as “the Book
of Moses.” (Ezra vi. 18; Mark xii. 26.) Two other collections of sacred
books were subsequently added, known respectively as the Prophets and the
Holy Writings, the former comprising Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets; the latter
comprising the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Song of Solomon, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. It is
in this order, we may note in passing, that the books of the Old Testament
are still arranged in our Hebrew Bibles.
Before the completion of the canon of the Old Testament the language of
the Jews began to exhibit evidences of change, and through their
intercourse with the various peoples of Mesopotamia (or Aram) the later
books show a distinct tendency towards Aramaic forms and idioms. This
tendency, already apparent at the time of the return from the Captivity,
was accelerated by the political events which followed. During the hundred
and eighty years and more which intervened between the Restoration of the
Temple, B.C. 516, and the overthrow of Darius Codomannus, B.C. 331, Judæa
was a portion of that province of the Persian empire, in which the Aramaic
was the prevalent dialect. The ancient Hebrew gradually ceased to be the
language of the Jews in common life, and, before the time of our Lord, had
been supplanted by the language of their Eastern neighbours.
With the decline of the Hebrew language there arose amongst the Jews the
class of men known as Scribes, whose primary function was that of
preparing copies of the Scriptures, and of guarding the sacred text from
the intrusion of errors. Owing to their great zeal for the preservation of
the letter of Scripture, and to their natural tendency to hold fast to the
honour and influence which their special knowledge and skill gave to
them, they did not, when Hebrew ceased to be intelligible to the common
people, set themselves to the task of giving them the Bible in a form
which they could understand; but, magnifying their office overmuch,
assumed the position of authoritative teachers and expounders of the Law.
Scholars might still study for themselves the ancient Bible, but for the
people at large the form which the Scriptures now practically assumed was
that of the spoken utterances of the Scribes.
How imperfect and unsatisfactory this must have been is obvious; and the
more so as these teachers did not content themselves with simply rendering
the ancient text into a familiar form, but intermingled with it a mass of
human traditions that obscured and sometimes contradicted its meaning. It
would have been a great gain for the people of Judæa if their regard for
the outward form of their Scriptures had been less extreme and more
enlightened, and if competent men amongst them had ventured so to revise
the ancient books that their fellow countrymen might read in their own
tongue the wonderful works and words of God.
This wiser course was adopted in that larger Judæa which lay outside of
Palestine. The Jews scattered through Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and
other parts of the empire of Alexander and his successors, were less
rigidly conservative than were the residents of Judæa, and for their use a
translation into Greek was made in the latter part of the third century
before Christ. This is the version known as the Septuagint.[1] It is
probable, both on general grounds and from internal evidence, that the
Pentateuch was the portion first translated, and that subsequently, though
after no very long interval of time, the other portions were translated
also. It is quite certain that the whole was in circulation in the middle
of the second century before Christ. Various tales respecting the origin
of this translation got spread abroad.[2] These are largely due to the
vivid imagination of their authors. They may, however, be taken as
evidence of the high esteem in which this version was held; and we shall
probably not err in concluding from them that Alexandria was the city in
which it originated. During, then, the two centuries that preceded the
Advent, the Bible, as used by the great majority of its readers in various
parts of the world, had assumed an entirely different form from that in
which it at first appeared. It was in Greek, and not in Hebrew, and it
included several additional works; those, namely, which are now called
collectively the Apocrypha. The use of this translation amongst the
extra-Palestinian Jews contributed largely to the spread of Christianity;
and to many amongst the earliest Christian churches, and for many
generations, it was still the form under which they studied the books of
the Old Testament.
At the time of our Lord and His Apostles, Greek was the language which
most widely prevailed through the Roman Empire. It was the ordinary
language of intercourse amongst all the peoples that had formerly been
subjugated by Grecian arms, and was read and spoken by many in Rome
itself. It was in this language, and not in the sacred language of the
ancient Church, that the books of the New Testament were written; and the
lesson was thereby emphatically taught us that the Bible was for man, and
not man for the Bible; that the form was subordinate to the substance, and
should be so modified, as occasions occur, that it may best minister to
the spiritual wants of mankind.
As years passed on Christianity spread into the rural parts of the
districts already occupied, where Greek was but little known, and into new
regions beyond, where that language had never prevailed. This called for
further changes in the form of Scripture, and in the second century of our
era both the Old and New Testaments were translated for the use of the
numerous Christians in Northern and Eastern Syria into that form of
Aramaic which is known as Syriac. This language--the Syro-Aramaic--differs
by dialectic peculiarities from the Palestinian Aramaic. In its earliest
forms, however, we have probably the nearest representation we can now
hope to obtain of the native language of the people amongst whom our Lord
lived and laboured.
About the same time also the Scriptures began to be translated into Latin
for the use of the Churches of North Africa, and there is good reason for
believing that in the last quarter of the second century the entire
Scriptures in Latin were largely circulated throughout that region. This
was what is termed the Old Latin version. It was the Bible as possessed
and used by Tertullian and Cyprian, and subsequently, in a revised form,
by Augustine. In the Old Testament this version was made, not from Hebrew,
but from the Greek of the Septuagint, and so was but the translation of a
translation.
From Africa this Bible passed into Italy. Here a certain rudeness of
style, arising from its provincial origin, awakened ere long a desire to
secure a version that should be at once more accurate and more grateful to
Italian ears. Various attempts at a revision of the Latin were
consequently made. One of these, known as the Itala, or the Italic
version, is highly commended by Augustine. In the year A.D. 383, Damasus,
the then Bishop of Rome, troubled by the manifold variations that existed
between different copies of the Latin Scriptures then in circulation,
used his influence with one of the greatest scholars of the age, Eusebius
Hieronymus, to undertake the laborious and responsible task of a thorough
revision of the Latin text. Hieronymus, or, as he is commonly termed,
Jerome, at once set himself to the task, and his revised New Testament
appeared in A.D. 385. He also once and again revised the Old Latin version
of the Book of Psalms, and subsequently the remaining books of the Old
Testament, carefully comparing them with the Greek of the Septuagint, from
which they had been derived. In A.D. 389, when in his sixtieth year, he
entered upon the further task of a new translation of the books of the Old
Testament from the original Hebrew, and completed it in the year A.D. 404.
Out of the various labours of Jerome arose the Bible which is commonly
known as the Vulgate. Jerome’s translation of the Old Testament from the
Hebrew was not made at the instance of any ecclesiastical authority, and
the old prejudice in favour of the Septuagint led many still to cling to
the earlier version. Only very gradually did the new translation make its
way; and not until the time of Gregory the Great, at the close of the
sixth century, did it receive the explicit sanction of the head of the
Roman Church.[3] In the case of the Psalter, the old translation was never
superseded.
The Vulgate is thus a composite work. It contains (1) Jerome’s translation
from the Hebrew of all the books of the Old Testament, except the Psalms;
(2) Jerome’s revision of the Old Latin version of the Psalms, that version
being, as stated above, made from the Septuagint; (3) the Old Latin
version of the Apocrypha unrevised, save in the books of Judith and
Tobit; (4) Jerome’s revised New Testament, which in the Gospels was very
careful and complete, and might almost be termed a new translation, though
he himself repudiated any such claim.
During many centuries the Vulgate was the only form in which the Bible was
accessible to the people of Western Europe, and it was the Bible from
which in turn the earliest Bibles of our own and other countries were
immediately derived. It will thus be seen that the history of the Bible
has from the beginning been a history of revision. Only so could they who
loved the Bible fulfil the trust committed to them; only so could the
Bible be a Bible for mankind.
LECTURE II.
_THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE._
The English Bible, more than any other of the forms in which the
Scriptures have been used by Christian men, has been a growth. It is not
the production of one man, or of one epoch. It has come down to us through
a long series of transformations, and it is the result of the continuous
endeavours of a succession of earnest labourers to give to their
fellow-countrymen a faithful representation of the word of God.
At what date, and by whom, the Scriptures were first set forth in a form
which was intelligible to the people of this country is not known. In the
earliest period respecting which we have any clear information, the Latin
Vulgate was the Bible of the clergy and of public worship. Some portions
only were rendered into the language of the common people. Few of them
probably were able to read, and this may explain why it was that the
Psalms were especially selected for translation. They could be more
readily committed to memory, and be more easily wedded to music. But
whatever the reason, the Psalter is the earliest English Bible of which we
have any definite knowledge. It was translated quite early in the eighth
century, both by Aldhelm, sometime Abbot of Malmesbury, but at his death,
in A.D. 709,[4] Bishop of Sherborne, and by Guthlac,[5] the hermit of
Croyland, who died A.D. 714.[6] A few years later, A.D. 735, the Venerable
Bede translated the gospel of John, dying, as related in the touching
narrative of his disciple Cuthbert, in the very act of completing it. In
the following century King Alfred greatly encouraged the work of
translation, and it is to this period that we are probably to attribute
those Anglo-Saxon gospels which have come down to us.[7] Towards the close
of the tenth century, or early in the eleventh, the first seven books of
the Old Testament were partly translated and partly epitomised by Ælfric,
Archbishop of Canterbury. A verse from each of these two last-mentioned
works will show of what sort was the form of these early English Bibles,
and will at the same time illustrate one of the causes which from time to
time have rendered the task of revision an imperative duty.
The Anglo-Saxon gospel presents Matthew v. 3 thus:
“Eadige sind ða gastlican þearfan, forðam hyra ys heofena rice.”
And in Ælfric’s Heptateuch, Genesis xliii. 29 reads:
“Ða josep geseah his gemeddredan broþor beniamin þa cwaeþ he, is þis se
cnapa þe ge me foresaedon and eft he cwaeþ god gemilt sige þe sunu min.”
In the course of time our language gradually changed from the form
exhibited in these quotations to that seen in the writings of Chaucer and
Wycliffe. During the earlier part of this transition period the Old
English (Anglo-Saxon) Scriptures continued in use; but towards the middle
part they seem to have become partially unintelligible, and attempts were
consequently made to give the Scriptures to the people in the new form of
language then prevalent, and which is known as the Early English. It has
been asserted that the entire Scriptures were issued in this form; but for
this there is no satisfactory evidence. We have certain knowledge only of
a poetical version of the Psalms (the “Ormulum”), written about the close
of the twelfth century; of a poetical narration of the principal events
recorded in Genesis and Exodus, written about the middle of the thirteenth
century; and of two prose verses of the Psalms, both belonging to the
early part of the fourteenth century, one by William de Schorham, vicar of
Chart-Sutton, in Kent, and the other by Richard Rolle, of Hampole, near
Doncaster. In the version of the former the first two verses of Psalm i.
are thus given:
“Blessed be the man that ȝed nouȝt in the counseil of wicked: ne stode
nouȝt in the waie of sinȝeres, ne sat nouȝt in fals jugement. Ac hijs
wylle was in the wylle of oure Lord; and he schal thenche in hijs lawe
both daȝe and nyȝt.”
The year 1382 is the earliest date at which it can with any confidence be
affirmed that the entire Scriptures existed in the English language.[8]
During several years previous to this date Wycliffe and his associates
had in various ways been working towards the accomplishment of this
result. But it was with some measure of secrecy, as of men who apprehended
danger from the attempt. This renders it difficult to determine with
precision the date when the work was completed, and what was the part
which each of the joint labourers had in the common task. It is beyond
controversy that the chief place of honour is due to John Wycliffe. His
name is so closely and constantly associated with this Bible by those who
refer to it in the times immediately succeeding, as to put it beyond all
doubt that it is to his influence our country is mainly indebted for this
unspeakable boon. The translation of the New Testament was probably in
whole or in large part the work of Wycliffe himself. That of the Old
Testament, down to the twentieth verse of the third chapter of Baruch, is
credibly assigned, upon the authority of a MS. in the Bodleian library, to
Nicholas de Hereford, one of the leaders of the Lollard party in Oxford.
It is probable that this Bible was somewhat hurriedly completed, and that
either the translators were prevented by circumstances from reviewing
their work before issuing it, or, with the natural eagerness of men
engaged in a first attempt, they did not allow themselves time for doing
so. Possibly also they may themselves have regarded it but as a sort of
first draft of their work, and the variations they had found to exist in
their copies of the Vulgate had revealed to them the need of further
labour before they could satisfactorily complete the task they had
undertaken.
Wycliffe died in December, 1384; but either before his death, or shortly
afterward, a revision of this work was commenced by one of his most
intimate friends, John Purvey, who, having resided with Wycliffe during
the latter part of his life, may be reasonably credited with acting herein
under a full knowledge of the wishes and aims of his honoured teacher.
The course pursued by Purvey, as described by himself in his prologue,[9]
is interesting and instructive, setting forth, as it does, most distinctly
the main lines upon which any work of Biblical revision must proceed. His
first step was to collect old copies of the Vulgate, and the works of
learned men who had expounded and translated the same; and then, by
examination and comparison, to remove as far as he could the errors which
in various ways had crept into the Latin text. His second step was to
study afresh the text so revised, and endeavour to arrive at a correct
apprehension of its general meaning. His third was to consult the best
authorities within his reach for the explanation of obscure terms, and of
specially difficult passages. His fourth was to translate as clearly as
possible, and then submit the same to the joint correction of competent
persons; or, to use his own words, “to translate as clearly as he could to
the sentence, and to have many good fellows, and cunning, at the
correcting of the translation.” By the co-operation of this band of
skilful helpers the work was completed about the year 1388, and copies of
it were rapidly multiplied.[10] It became, in fact, the accepted form of
the Wycliffite version.
By a comparison of the two verses of Psalm i., given above, with the forms
in which they appeared in the two Wycliffe Bibles, the reader will be able
in some degree to estimate the growth of our language, and will also
understand how painstaking and reverent was the care taken by these
“faithful men” that in this sacred work they might offer of their very
best.
In the earlier Wycliffe version the verses read thus:
“Blisful the man that went not awei in the counseil of unpitouse, and in
the wei off sinful stod not, and in the chaȝer of pestilence sat not. But
in the lawe of the Lord his wil; and in the lawe of hym he shal sweteli
thenke dai and nyȝt.”
In Purvey’s revised version they read:
“Blessid _is_ the man that ȝede not in the councel of wickid men; and
stood not in the weie of synneris, and sat not in the chaier of
pestilence. But his wille _is_ in the lawe of the Lord; and he schal
bithenke in the lawe of hym dai and nyȝt.”
This Bible, so long as it remained in use as the Bible of English people,
existed, it should be remembered, only in a manuscript form.[11] The chief
point, however, to be noticed here is, that with all its excellences, and
unspeakable as was its worth, it was but the translation of a translation.
Neither Wycliffe nor his associates had access to the Hebrew original of
the Old Testament; and although some copies of the Greek New Testament
were then to be found in England, there is no reason to believe that
Purvey or his friends were able to make any use of them. They were,
indeed, aware that the Latin of the common text did not always faithfully
represent the Hebrew; but their knowledge of this fact was second-hand,
gathered chiefly from the commentaries of Nicholas de Lyra, a writer
whose works were held in high repute by Bible students in that age. They
did not, therefore, venture to correct these places, but contented
themselves with noting in the margin, “What the Ebru hath, and how it is
undurstondun.” This, Purvey states, he has done most frequently in the
Psalter, which “of alle oure bokis discordith most fro Ebru.”
* * * * *
The third stage in the growth of the English Scriptures is brought before
us by the interesting series of printed Bibles that issued from the
printing press in the reign of Henry VIII.
After the death of Wycliffe the efforts of the Popish party to crush the
Lollards had increased in violence, and various enactments were passed
proscribing the use of the Bible which bore his name. An act, passed in
the second parliament of Henry V., went still further, and declared that
all who read the Scriptures in their native tongue should forfeit land,
cattle, life, and goods, they and their heirs for ever. Notwithstanding
these repressive measures, copies of the Wycliffe Bible were still made
and read in secret. This could be done only with great risk and
difficulty, and none but persons of some wealth could afford the expense
of a complete copy. Those in humbler positions deemed themselves happy if
they could secure a single book, or even a few leaves. Moreover, through
the growing changes of the language, many passages were becoming very
obscure to ordinary readers. During the hundred years which followed after
the issuing of the law just referred to, two important events had
happened; namely, the invention of printing,[12] and the German
Reformation. Both of these had a large influence in stimulating the
friends of the Bible to new efforts in revising it for popular use.
The leader of this movement in our own country was William Tyndale, who,
in the year 1525, printed on the Continent, whither he had been driven by
the opposition which beset him at home, the first edition of his New
Testament, translated from the Greek. A second and revised edition,
“dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke,” was printed at
Antwerp, and published in November, 1534; and a third and final edition
was published in the early part of 1535, in the May of which year he was
arrested and committed to the castle of Vilvorde, near Brussels. Of other
parts of the Scriptures Tyndale was able to publish only the Pentateuch
(1530 or 1531) and the book of Jonah (1534). On the sixth day of October,
1536, he was led to the stake. He was there strangled and his body burnt.
Just twelve months before the martyrdom of Tyndale, the first printed
edition of the entire Scriptures in the English language was issued from
the press of Jacob van Meteren, at Antwerp. The privilege and honour of
accomplishing this memorable work belongs to Miles Coverdale, at that time
a poor scholar, dependent upon the patronage of Thomas Cromwell and
others, though subsequently, for a short period in the reign of Edward
VI., Bishop of Exeter. The first edition of his Bible was “prynted in the
year of our Lord MDXXXV., and fynished the fourthe day of October.”
Coverdale had been moved to the undertaking by his own deep sense of the
needs of his country, and by the earnest appeals addressed to him by
others. Through his modesty of disposition, and his lowly estimate of his
own abilities, he would have declined the task, but the urgency of his
friends prevailed. The expenses also of the preparation and publication of
the work were met by the liberality of some of them. In his prologue he
says, “It was neither my labour nor desire to have this work put in my
hand; nevertheless it grieved me that other nations should be more
plenteously provided for with the Scripture in their mother tongue than
we; therefore, when I was instantly required, though I could not do as
well as I would, I thought it my duty to do my best, and that with a good
will;”[13] and in the dedication to the king, prefixed to some of the
copies, he says, “As the Holy Ghost moved other men to do the cost hereof,
so was I boldened in God to labour in the same.” According to the
statement on the title-page this was not a translation made from the
original texts,[14] but was faithfully and truly translated out of the
“Douche and Latyn in to Englishe.” In the dedication he states that he
had, “with a clear conscience purely and faithfully translated this out of
five sundry interpreters,” and in his prologue he explains further, that
to help him in his work he had used “sundry translations, not only in
Latin, but also of the Dutch interpreters;” and he is careful, further, to
explain that he did not “set forth this special translation” “as a
reprover and despiser of other men’s translations,” but “lowly and
faithfully have I followed mine interpreters, and that under correction.”
The five interpreters to whom Coverdale thus refers were probably the
Vulgate, the Latin version of Pagninus, Luther’s translation, the Zurich
Bible, and Tyndale’s New Testament and Pentateuch. Though the volume was
dedicated to the king, and though Coverdale was backed by powerful
patrons, this Bible was not published with a royal license. No direct
attempt, however, was made to suppress it. In the following year (1536) it
was virtually condemned by the members of Convocation, who prayed the king
that he would “grant unto his subjects of the laity the reading of the
Bible in the English tongue, and that a new translation of it be made for
that end and purpose.” But notwithstanding this two new editions of
Coverdale’s Bible were printed in London in 1537, and on the title-page of
both of these there appeared the words, “Set forth with the kynge’s moost
gracious licence.”
In the same year, 1537, and probably in the earlier part of it, there was
issued in London another Bible, which also bore upon its title-page the
inscription, “Set forth with the kinge’s most gracyous lycence.”[15] This
Bible, commonly known as Matthew’s Bible, was, it is now generally
believed, prepared for the press by John Rogers, who suffered martyrdom at
Smithfield, under the Marian persecution. In the New Testament and
Pentateuch he agrees substantially with Tyndale’s version. Of the other
books of the Old Testament, a portion is obviously taken from Coverdale,
the remaining part, Joshua to Chronicles, has been thought with good
reason to be the work of Tyndale. It is known that Tyndale, after the
publication of his Pentateuch, continued to labour at the translation of
the Old Testament. In a letter written during his imprisonment he prays to
be allowed to have his Hebrew Bible, and his Hebrew grammar and
dictionary; and it is by no means unlikely that the results of his
studies were committed to the care of Rogers. If this surmise be correct,
then this Bible may be viewed as a compilation, two-thirds of it being due
to Tyndale, and one-third to Coverdale. A sufficient reason for the
adoption of the assumed name of Thomas Matthew is thus supplied, since
Rogers could not claim the work as his own, and Tyndale’s name would have
arrayed against it the opposition both of the king and of the Romish
party.
Both of the last mentioned Bibles were open to certain obvious objections.
Coverdale’s, in that it was derived from German and Latin versions; and
Matthew’s, in that it was in part only made from the original texts.
Matthew’s also was accompanied by a considerable number of critical and
explanatory notes, many of which were of a decided anti-papal cast.
Accordingly, at the instigation and under the patronage of Thomas
Cromwell, Coverdale set himself to revise his former work with the aid of
the valuable contribution supplied to him in Matthew’s Bible. The printing
of this new Bible was completed in April, 1539, and from the circumstance
that it was printed in the largest folio then used, 15 inches by 9, it
was, and is, commonly described as the Great Bible. In the title-page it
is declared to be “truly translated, after the veryte of the Hebrue and
Greke textes by ye dylygent studye of dyuerse excellent learned men,
expert in the forsayde tonges.”[16] By this, it is now tolerably certain,
we are to understand, not that several living scholars took part with
Coverdale in the preparation of the volume, but that he availed himself of
the published writings of men skilled in the ancient languages, who had
translated and expounded the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Scriptures. His
chief guides were Sebastian Munster for the Old Testament, and Erasmus for
the New. The Bible appeared without notes, and had no dedication.[17]
In the same year (1539) there appeared also the Bible[18] edited by
Richard Taverner, formerly of Cardinal College (now Christ Church),
Oxford, afterwards of the Inner Temple, and more recently Clerk of the
Signet to the King.[19] It may be briefly described as a revised edition
of Matthew’s Bible. Taverner had some reputation as a Greek scholar, but
his work is very unequally executed, and before the formidable competition
of the Great Bible it soon sank into obscurity. After its first year of
issue this Bible seems to have been only once reprinted in its entirety;
namely, in 1549.[20]
Not content with what he had already done, Coverdale persevered in the
revision and re-revision of his work. A second edition was issued in
April, 1540, to which was prefixed a prologue by Cranmer,[21] and its
title contained the words, “This is the Byble apoynted to the use of the
churches.” Two other editions appeared in the same year, and three in the
following year.[22] (The edition of April, 1540, seems, however, to have
been regarded as a sort of standard edition.) This Bible was the Bible
read in churches in the reign of Edward VI., and in the early part of the
reign of Elizabeth.
Hence it will be seen that of the four principal Bibles published in the
reign of Henry VIII., namely, Tyndale’s New Testament and Pentateuch,
Coverdale’s Bible, Matthew’s Bible, and the Great Bible, the last three
form a group of closely related versions, of which Tyndale’s is the common
parent, and the rest successively derived therefrom. And it is very
noteworthy that these Bibles are mainly the result of the patient and
devoted labours of two men only. The work done by such men as Rogers and
Taverner, however important, is altogether of a subordinate kind. William
Tyndale and Miles Coverdale stand apart, and above all others, as the men
who, in those days of religious awakening and of conflict with the papal
tyranny, gave the Bible to our countrymen in a form that could reach at
once their understanding and their heart. Remembering this, and
remembering also in what difficult circumstances the work was done, the
wonder is far less that room was left for improvement, and that further
revision was felt by themselves and others to be an imperative duty, than
that so much was accomplished, and so well, by the indomitable and
self-denying labours of these noble men.
LECTURE III.
_THE FURTHER GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE._
The accession of Elizabeth, November 17th, 1558, conveniently marks the
date of a fourth stage in the growth of the English Bible. The former
translations and revisions had been done in troublous times, in the midst
of harassing opposition, and under circumstances which forbade the full
use of such aids as the scholarship of the times could furnish. The
versions now to be mentioned were carried on in open day, and with free
access to all that was then available for the correction and explanation
of the original texts.
* * * * *
Amongst the many earnest men driven into exile by the Marian persecution
was William Whittingham, some time Fellow of All Souls’, Oxford, and
subsequently Dean of Durham.[23] Along with others he found a refuge,
first at Frankfort, and afterwards at Geneva. On the 10th day of June,
1557, there was published, in the last mentioned city, a small volume,
16mo, entitled “The Newe Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. Conferred
diligently with the Greke, and best approved translations. With the
arguments aswel before the chapters, as for every Boke and Epistle, also
diversities of readings, and moste proffitable annotations of all harde
places; whereunto is added a copious Table.” This translation, there is
reason to believe, was the work of Whittingham alone. It may be noted, in
passing, that it was the first English New Testament which contained the
now familiar division into verses, and the first also to indicate by
_italics_ the words added by the translator in order to convey more fully
or more clearly the sense of the original.
Three years afterwards (1560) there was published in the same city, “The
Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament.
Translated according to the Ebrue and Greeke, and conferred with the best
translations in divers languages. With moste profitable annotations upon
all the hard places, and other things of great importance as may appeare
in the epistle to the reader.” This is the celebrated Genevan version,
which for nearly a century onward was the form of Bible most largely
circulated in this country. It differed in several respects from its
predecessors. It was a convenient quarto instead of a cumbrous folio. It
was printed in Roman letters instead of the heavy Gothic or black letters.
It marked by a different type all words inserted for the completion of the
sense, and the chapters were divided into verses. But what was of more
importance, it was, as stated in the title, compared throughout with the
original texts. Both in the Old and New Testaments it largely reproduces
the words of Tyndale. Sometimes it gives a preference to the version of
Coverdale; but often it departs from both in order to give a more exact
rendering of the Hebrew or the Greek. It seems that several of the Genevan
refugees consecrated their enforced leisure to “this great and wonderful
work,” as they justly term it, moved thereto by the twofold consideration
that, owing to “imperfect knowledge of the tongues,” the previous
“translations required greatly to be perused and reformed,” and that
“great opportunities and occasions” for doing this work were presented to
them in the “so many godly and learned men” into whose society they had
now been brought.
The names of Miles Coverdale, Christopher Goodman, Anthony Gilby, Thomas
Sampson, William Cole, and William Whittingham are given as those who,
with some others, joined in this undertaking. On the accession of
Elizabeth most of the exiles returned home, conveying with them, for
presentation to the Queen, the Book of Psalms as a specimen of the work on
which they were engaged.[24]
Wittingham only, with one or two others, remained behind for a year and a
half in order to complete the work. According to the statement given in
the address to the reader, the entire period spent upon the preparation of
this version was a little more than two years. It will hence be seen that
whatever may have been the part taken in the work by Coverdale and others,
by far the chief share in it devolved upon Whittingham and the one or two
referred to, who were probably Gilby and Sampson. How weighty was the
obligation which in the view of these self-denying men rested upon them to
give the word of God to their country in the form that would best and most
truly present it, and with what reverent care they laboured to attain
unto this, is shown by the fact that although Whittingham had so recently
published his version of the New Testament, he is not content with a
simple reproduction of this, but subjects it to a thorough and very
careful revision. A comparison of the introduction to Luke’s gospel as it
appears in the Genevan Bible of 1560 with the same passage in
Whittingham’s version of 1557 will help our readers in some measure to
realize the nature and extent of this revision.
In the earlier version the passages read thus:
“For asmuch as many have taken in hand to write the historie of those
thynges, wherof we are fully certified, even as they declared them
unto us, which from y{e} begynnyng saw them their selves, and were
ministers at the doyng: It seemed good also to me (moste noble
Theophilus) as sone as I had learned perfectly all thynges from the
beginnyng, to wryte unto thee therof from poynt to poynt: That thou
mightest acknowlage the trueth of those thinges where in thou hast
bene broght up.”
In the version of 1560 the same passage is given thus:
“For as much as many have taken in hande to set foorth the storie of
those thinges whereof we are fully persuaded. As they have delivered
them unto us, which from the beginning saw them theirselves, and were
ministers of the worde, It seemed good also to me (most noble
Theophilus), as sone as I had searched out perfectly all things from
the beginnyng, to write unto thee thereof from point to point, That
thou mightest acknowledge the certaintie of these things, whereof thou
hast bene instructed.”
It will be seen that in this short passage the changes made from the
earlier form of the work are as many as ten in number. As this, however,
may be deemed a somewhat exceptional passage, let us take an ordinary
chapter in the Gospels, presenting no special difficulty, as for instance
Matt. xvii. A collation of the two versions will show that in this chapter
of twenty-seven verses the revision of 1560 departs from Whittingham’s
earlier work in no fewer than forty places.[25] Thus persevering was the
endeavour of these faithful men to do their very best, and with what
success may to some extent be seen in the fact that of these forty
changes twenty-six were confirmed in after years by the judgment of King
James’ translators.
“So earnestly,” says Strype[26] in his _Life of Archbishop Parker_, “did
the people of the nation thirst in those days after the knowledge of the
Scriptures, that that first impression was soon sold off.” So earnestly
also did the translators seek to perfect their work, that about the
beginning of March, 1565, they had finished a careful review and
correction of their translation in preparing for a fresh issue.
Popular as was the Genevan Bible amongst the mass of the English people,
the decidedly puritanic cast of its annotations stood in the way of its
universal acceptance, while its manifest superiority as a translation to
the Great Bible made it almost an impossibility that the latter could be
maintained in its place of pre-eminence as the Bible appointed by
authority to be read in churches. Steps were accordingly taken by Matthew
Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, to prepare a Bible, by the aid of
“diverse learned fellow-bishops,” that would accord with the
ecclesiastical sympathies of the party to which he belonged.[27] He
distributed portions to twelve of his episcopal brethren, and to other
Church dignitaries;[28] one portion he took under his own charge. The
completed work was presented to Elizabeth within a few weeks of the
completion of the tenth year of her reign, October 5th, 1568.
The rules laid down by Parker for the guidance of his colleagues were
these: 1. “To follow the common English translation used in the churches,
and not to recede from it but where it varieth manifestly from the Hebrew
or Greek original. 2. To use sections and divisions in the texts as
Pagnine[29] in his translation useth; and for the verity of the Hebrew, to
follow the said Pagnine and Munster specially, and generally others
learned in the tongues. 3. To make no bitter notes upon any text, or yet
to set down any determination in places of controversy. 4. To note such
chapters and places as contain matter of genealogies, or other such places
not edifying, with some strike or note, that the reader may eschew them in
his public reading. 5. That all such words as sound in the old translation
to any offence of lightness or obscenity be expressed with more convenient
terms and phrases.” From the first of these rules it is clear that the
work then undertaken was intended to be a revision of the Great Bible.
Some of the revisers seem to have observed this rule in a most rigid
manner, and have followed the Great Bible so closely as to retain its
words, even in places which had been more correctly rendered in the
Genevan. There appears to have been no co-operative action on the part of
the several revisers, and to this cause we may attribute much of the
irregularity that attaches to the execution of their work. In many
respects they laid themselves open to adverse criticism, and a paper was
sent to Parker by Thomas Lawrence, Head Master of Shrewsbury School, and
an eminent Greek scholar, entitled, _Notes of Errors in the Translation of
the New Testament out of the Greek_.[30] He points out fifteen passages in
which the words are not “aptlye translated,” eight in which “words and
pieces of sentences” are “omytted,” two in which superfluous words are
inserted, two in which, owing to mistranslation, an “error in doctrine” is
involved, and two in which the moods and tenses of verbs are changed.
These passages, except one from the Colossians, are all taken from the
Gospels; and we may hence not unreasonably infer that the writer intended
the passages named to be regarded, not as an exhaustive list, but as
illustrations simply of the kind of defects which called for correction.
Moved, as would seem, by these criticisms, Parker set on foot a revision
of his former volume; and in 1572 this Bible was, as his biographer
expresses it,[31] “a second time by his means” “printed with Corrections
and Amendments and other improvements, more than the former Editions.”
Although this Bible received the sanction of Convocation, and every
Archbishop and Bishop was ordered to have a copy in his hall or
dining-room for the use of his servants and of strangers; and although
some editions bear on their title-page the words, “Set forth by
Aucthoritie” (meaning thereby the authority of Convocation), it never came
into anything like general use, nor did it even establish itself as the
Bible exclusively read in churches. The Genevan Bible was still used by
many of the clergy in their sermons and in their published works; and in
1587, though nineteen years had then passed since its first publication,
we find Archbishop Whitgift complaining that divers parish churches and
chapels of ease had either no Bible at all, or those only which were not
of the translation authorized by the Synods of Bishops. Between 1568,
when this Bible was first published, and 1608, when the last New Testament
of this version was issued, there were sent forth altogether twenty
editions of the Bishops’ Bible and eleven of the New Testament. In the
same period there were published seventy-nine editions of the Genevan
Bible, and thirty of the Genevan New Testament.[32]
Besides the Genevan and the Bishops’, another Bible made its appearance
(so far, at least, as the New Testament was concerned) in the reign of
Elizabeth. In the year 1582 there was printed at Rheims a translation of
the New Testament,[33] made by certain scholars connected with the English
seminary for the training of Catholic priests, formerly established at
Douai, in Flanders. The translators, in their preface, candidly confess
that they did not publish from any conviction “that the Holy Scriptures
should alwaies be in our mother tonge,” or that they ought “to be read
indifferently of all,” but because they had compassion to see their
“beloved countrie men with extreme danger of their soules, to use only
such prophane translations;” viz., as the Protestant Bibles previously
referred to, “and erroneous men’s mere phantasies, for the pure and
beloved word of truth;” and because, also, they were “moved thereunto by
the desires of many devout persons,” and whom they hoped to induce to lay
aside the “impure versions” they had hitherto been compelled to employ.
Quite apart from the polemical purpose thus distinctly avowed, this
translation was a retrograde movement. It did not profess to translate the
original texts, but only the “vulgar Latin;” and the translators justify
their procedure by this plea, amongst others, that “the holy Council of
Trent ... hath declared and defined this onely of al other Latin
translations to be authentical, and so onely to be used and taken in
publike lessons, disputations, preachings, and expositions, and that no
man presume upon any pretence to reject or refuse the same.”
In the accomplishment of their work the Rhemish translators have very
faithfully observed the rule which they laid down for themselves, to be
“very precise and religious in folowing our copie, the old vulgar approved
Latin; not only in sense ... but sometime in the very wordes also, and
phrases;” that is to say, they have given a very literal and exact
translation of the Vulgate, in many parts extremely Latinized in its
diction. A considerable number of words they virtually left untranslated,
boldly venturing to transfer the unfamiliar, and in many cases
unintelligible, vocables into their English text. Some of these Latinized
words have obtained a permanent place in our language, but the larger
number have failed to commend themselves.[34]
Such then were the chief forms through which, at the close of the
sixteenth century, the English Bible had passed. The devout and earnest
scholars who from time to time sought to “open the Scriptures” to their
fellow-countrymen were for the most part moved by a burning desire to give
to God of their very best. They grudged no labour to render their work
more complete. They allowed no spirit of self-satisfaction to blind them
to a perception of defects. They were too humble and too well convinced of
the greatness and manifoldness of their work to fancy that they had
reached perfection, but were persevering and self-denying in their
endeavours to attain unto it. And they have left behind them for us to
follow a noble example of patient continuance in well doing.
How in their hands the English Bible has grown, from the first attempt to
set it forth in the language of our country to the form in which we are
most familiar with it, can be fully learnt only by a careful comparison of
the successive revisions to which it has been subjected. To aid my readers
in forming some approximate idea of it I append Psalm xxiii., as it
appears in the principal Bibles which have been mentioned in this and the
preceding lecture.
1. WYCLIFFE’S, 1382. (?)
The Lord gouerneth me, and no thing to me shal lacke; in the place of
leswe[35] where he me ful sette. Ouer watir of fulfilling he nurshide me;
my soule he conuertide. He broȝte doun me upon the sties of riȝtwisnesse;
for his name. For whi and if I shal go in the myddel of the shadewe of
deth; I shal not dreden euelis, for thou art with me. Thi ȝerde and thi
staf; tho han confortid me. Thou hast maad redi in thi siȝte a bord; aȝen
hem that trublyn me. Thou hast myche fattid in oile myn hed; and my chalis
makende ful drunken, hou riȝt cler it is. And thi mercy shal vnderfolewe
me; alle the daȝis of my lif. And that I dwelle in the hous of the Lord;
in to the lengthe of daȝis.
2. PURVEY’S, 1388. (?)
The Lord gouerneth me, and no thing schal faile to me; in the place of
pasture there he hath set me. He nurschide me on the watir of
refreischyng; he conuertide my soule. He ledde me forth on the pathis of
riȝtfulnesse; for his name. For whi thouȝ Y schal go in the myddis of
schadewe of deeth; Y schal not drede yuels, for thou art with me. Thi
ȝerde and thi staf; tho han coumfortid me. Thou hast maad redi a boord in
my siyt; aȝens hem that troblen me. Thou hast maad fat myn heed with oyle;
and my cuppe, fillinge greetli, is ful cleer. And thi merci schal sue me;
in alle the daies of my lijf. And that Y dwelle in the hows of the Lord;
in to the lengthe of daies.
3. COVERDALE’S, 1535.
The Lorde is my shepherde, I can want nothinge. He fedeth me in a greene
pasture; and ledeth me to a fresh water. He quickeneth my soule, and
bringeth me forth in the waye of rightuousness for his name’s sake. Though
I shulde walke now in the valley of the shadowe of death, yet I feare no
euell, for thou art with me; thy staffe and thy shepehoke comforte me.
Thou preparest a table before me agaynst mine enemies; thou anoyntest my
heade with oyle, and fyllest my cuppe full. Oh let thy louying kyndnes and
mercy folowe me all the dayes off my life that I maye dwell in the house
off the Lord for euer.
4. GREAT BIBLE, 1539.
The Lorde is my shepherde, therefore can I lacke nothing. He shal fede me
in a grene pasture and lead me forth besyde the waters of cōforte. He shal
conuerte my soule and bring me forth in the pathes of righteousnes for his
name’s sake. Yea, though I walke thorow y{e} valleye of y{e} shadow of
death, I wyl feare no euell, for thou art w{t} me: thy rod and thy staff
confort me.
Thou shalt prepare a table before me, agaynst them that trouble me: thou
hast annointed my head w{t} oyle, and my cup shal be ful. But (_thy_)
louing kyndnes and mercy shal folowe me all the dayes of my lyfe: and I
wyll dwel in the house of the Lord for euer.
5. GENEVAN, 1560.
1. The Lord _is_ my shepheard, I shall not want.
2. Hee maketh mee to rest in greene pasture, _and_ leadeth me by the still
waters.
3. He restoreth my soule, _and_ leadeth me in the paths of righteousnesse
for his Names sake.
4. Yea, though I should walke through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will feare no euill, for thou art with me: thy rodde and thy staffe, they
comfort me.
5. Thou doest prepare a table before me in the sight of mine adversaries:
thou doest anoynt mine head with oyle, _and_ my cup runneth over.
6. Doubtlesse kindnesse and mercy shall follow mee all the dayes of my
life, and I shall remaine a long season in the house of the Lord.
6. BISHOPS, 1568.
1. God is my shephearde, therefore I can lacke nothyng: he wyll cause me
to repose myselfe in pasture full of grasse, and he wyll leade me vnto
calme waters.
2. He wyll conuerte my soule; he wyll bring me foorth into the pathes of
righteousnesse for his name sake.
3. Yea, though I walke through the valley of the shadowe of death, I wyll
feare no euyll; for thou art with me, thy rodde and thy staffe be the
thynges that do comfort me.
4. Thou wylt prepare a table before me in the presence of myne
aduersaries; thou has annoynted my head with oyle, and my cup shalbe
brymme full.
5. Truely felicitie and mercie shal folowe me all the dayes of my lyfe:
and I wyll dwell in the house of God for a long tyme.
7. DOUAI, 1610.
1. The Psalme of Dauid.
2. Our Lord ruleth one, and nothing shal be wanting to me: in place of
pasture there he hath placed me.
3. Upon the water of refection he hath brought me vp: he hath conuerted my
soule.
He hath conducted me upon the pathes of iustice for his name.
4. For, although I shal walke in the middes of the shadow of death, I will
not feare euils: because thou art with me, Thy rod and thy staffe, they
haue comforted me.
5. Thou hast prepared in my sight a table, against them; that truble me.
Thou hast fatted my head with oyle; and my chalice inebriating how goodlie
is it!
6. And thy mercie shal folow me al the dayes of my life; And that I may
dwel in the house of our Lord, in longitude of dayes.
LECTURE IV.
_THE REVISION OF 1611--THE SO-CALLED AUTHORIZED VERSION._
At the accession of James I. the GENEVAN BIBLE and the BISHOPS’ BIBLE
were, as we have seen, the Bibles in current use, the latter being the
Bible upheld by ecclesiastical authority, the former the favourite Bible
of the people at large. The Book of Psalms also in the version of the
Great Bible survived, as it still does, in the psalter of the Prayer Book,
and probably in some few parish churches old and worn copies of the Great
Bible still maintained their place.
The state of religious parties at that date rendered it almost an
impossibility that either of the two first-named versions should become
universally accepted. The close connection of the Genevan Bible with the
Puritan party, and the decidedly puritanic cast of some of its notes,
created an insuperable prejudice against it in the minds of the more
zealous advocates of Episcopal authority; while the inferiority[36] of the
Bishops’ Bible as a version effectually barred its claim to an exclusive
use. The need, then, for a new version was obvious, and a desire for it
was probably felt by many of all parties.
Public expression was first given to this desire on the second day of the
Hampton Court Conference, January 16, 1604, by Dr. John Rainolds,[37] the
leading representative of the Puritans in that assembly. It was not
brought forward as one of the matters which he had been deputed to lay
before the Conference; it seems rather to have been mentioned by him
incidentally in connection with certain suggested reforms in the Prayer
Book. “He moved his Majesty that there might be a new translation of the
Bible, because those which were allowed in the reign of King Henry VIII.
and Edward VI. were corrupt, and not answerable to the Truth of the
Original,”[38] referring in illustration to the renderings given of Gal.
iv. 25,[39] Ps. cv. 28,[40] and Ps. cvi. 30.[41] It is somewhat curious
that no direct reference was made to the Bishops’ Bible; the reason,
probably, was that this Bible was not one of those which had been
“allowed” by royal authority. Of the three mistranslations quoted by
Rainolds, the first only is found in the Bishops’ Bible; the other two
occur in the Prayer Book Psalter.
The suggestion of Rainolds met with no opposition. The king himself
expressed his approval of it, not, however, without an ignorant and
disingenuous fling at the Genevan version; and “presently after,” say the
translators in their preface, the king “gave order for this translation”
to be made. In the course of a few months a scheme for the execution of
the work was matured, and in a letter to Dr. Richard Bancroft, then Bishop
of London, the king informed him that he had appointed fifty-four learned
men to undertake the translation. He even seems to have contemplated the
possibility of securing the co-operation of all the biblical scholars of
the country; and in a letter to Bancroft, dated July 22, 1604, directed
him “to move the bishops to inform themselves of all such learned men
within their several dioceses as, having especial skill in the Hebrew and
Greek tongues, have taken pains in their private studies of the Scriptures
for the clearing of any obscurities, either in the Hebrew or the Greek, or
touching any difficulties, or mistakings in the former English
translation, which we have now commanded to be thoroughly viewed and
amended; and thereupon to write unto them, earnestly charging them, and
signifying our pleasure therein, that they send such their observations to
Mr. Lively, our Hebrew reader in Cambridge, or to Dr. Harding, our Hebrew
reader in Oxford, or to Dr. Andrewes, Dean of Westminster, to be imparted
to the rest of their several companies; that so our said intended
translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned
men within this our kingdom.”[42] Directions to a similar effect were sent
also to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, who was empowered in the king’s
name to associate with those already appointed any “fitt men” he might be
acquainted with; and we may infer that a corresponding communication was
sent to Oxford.
To what extent this comprehensive scheme was carried out we have no means
of determining. The names of the fifty-four learned men referred to are
not given, and we are consequently left in uncertainty whether those who
ultimately engaged in the work[43] were all men included in that list, or
whether other scholars, chosen by the universities or recommended by the
bishops, formed part of the number.
The rules laid down for the guidance of the translators were as follows:
1. The ordinary Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishops’
Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the Truth of the Original
will permit.
2. The Names of the Prophets and the Holy Writers, with the other Names of
the Text to be retained, as nigh as may be, accordingly as they were
vulgarly used.
3. The old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept; viz., the word _Church_ not to
be translated _Congregation_, &c.
4. When a Word hath divers significations, that to be kept which hath been
most commonly used by the most of the Ancient Fathers, being agreeable to
the Propriety of the Place, and the Analogy of the Faith.
5. The division of the Chapters to be altered, either not at all, or as
little as may be, if necessity so require.
6. No Marginal Notes at all to be affixed, but only for the explanation of
the Hebrew or Greek Words, which cannot without some circumlocution, so
briefly and fitly be exprest in the Text.
7. Such Quotations of Places to be marginally set down, as shall serve for
the fit reference of one Scripture to another.
8. Every particular Man of each Company, to take the same Chapter or
Chapters, and having translated or amended them severally by himself,
where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what they have done,
and agree for their parts what shall stand.
9. As any one Company hath despatched any one Book in this manner, they
shall send it to the rest, to be considered of seriously and judiciously,
for his Majesty is very careful in this point.
10. If any Company, upon the review of the Book so sent, doubt or differ
upon any Place, to send them word thereof; Note the place, and withal send
the Reasons; to which if they consent not, the difference to be compounded
at the General Meeting, which is to be of the chief Persons of each
Company at the end of the Work.
11. When any Place of special obscurity is doubted of, Letters to be
directed, by Authority, to send to any Learned Man in the Land, for his
judgment of such a Place.
12. Letters to be sent from every Bishop, to the rest of his Clergy,
admonishing them of this Translation in hand; and to move and charge, as
many as being skilful in the Tongues; and having taken pains in that kind,
to send his particular Observations to the Company, either at Westminster,
Cambridg, or Oxford.
13. The Directors in each Company to be the Deans of Westminster and
Chester for that place; and the King’s Professors in the Hebrew or Greek
in either University.
14. These Translations to be used, when they agree better with the Text
than the Bishops’ Bible; viz., _Tindall’s_, _Matthew’s_, _Coverdale’s_,
_Whitchurch’s_,[44] _Geneva_.
15. Besides the said Directors before mentioned, three or four of the most
Ancient and Grave Divines, in either of the Universities not employed in
Translating, to be assigned by the Vice-Chancellor upon conference with
the rest of the Heads, to be Overseers of the Translations as well Hebrew
as Greek, for the better observation of the 4th rule above specified.[45]
Besides these rules, some others of a more definite nature seem to have
been adopted by the translators themselves. At the Synod of Dort, held in
the years 1618 and 1619, the question of preparing a new Dutch translation
came under consideration, and for the guidance of its deliberations upon
this point the English Delegates[46] were requested to give an account of
the procedure observed in the translation recently made in England. In a
matter of such grave importance the Delegates felt that they ought not to
give any off-hand statement, and accordingly, after careful consideration,
prepared a written account, which was presented to the Synod on its
seventh Session, November 20th, 1618. In this account eight rules are
given, the first three of which embody the substance of the first, sixth,
and seventh of the rules given above. The others direct:
That where the Hebrew or Greek admits of a twofold rendering, one is to be
given in the text, and the other noted in the margin; and in like manner
where an important various reading is found in approved authorities.
That in the translation of the books of Tobit and Judith, where the text
of the old Latin Vulgate greatly differs from that of the Greek, the
latter text should be followed.
That all words introduced for the purpose of completing the sense are to
be distinguished by a difference of type.
That new tables of contents should be prefixed to each book, and new
summaries to each chapter.
And lastly, that a complete list of Genealogies[47] and a description of
the Holy Land should be added to the work.[48]
From various causes, which cannot now be discovered, a period of three
years elapsed before the revisers commenced their labours. One reason may
have been that no provision was made for meeting the necessary costs of
the undertaking. With a cheap liberality the king directed Bancroft to
write to the bishops, asking them, as benefices became vacant, to give him
the opportunity of bestowing them upon the translators as a reward for
their service; and as to current expenses, the king, while professing with
much effusiveness his readiness to bear them, cleverly evaded the
responsibility by stating that some of “my lords, as things now go, did
hold it inconvenient.”[49]
The revision was completed, as the revisers themselves tell us, in “twice
seven times seventy-two days and more;” that is to say, in about two years
and three-quarters; and if to this be added the nine months spent in a
final revision and preparation for the press, we have then only a period
of three years and a half. The new Bible was published in 1611; the work,
therefore, could not have been commenced before 1607.
Although the men who engaged in this important undertaking are called
“translators,” their work was essentially that of revision. This is
clearly shown both by the rules laid down for their guidance, and by the
statement of the translators themselves, who say in their preface, “Truly,
good Christian reader, wee never thought from the beginning that wee
should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good
one,” “but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one
principall good one, not justly to bee excepted against; that hath beene
our indeavour, that our marke.”[50]
Further, this revision was a more extensive and thorough revision than any
which had been heretofore undertaken. In former revisions, either the work
had been done by the solitary labours of one or two, or when a fair number
of competent men were engaged in it no sufficient provision had been made
for combined action, and but few opportunities had been given for mutual
conference. In this revision a larger number of scholars were engaged than
upon any former, and the arrangements were such as secured that upon no
part of the Bible should the labour of fewer than seven persons be
expended. The revisers were divided into six companies, two of which met
at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. The books of the Old
Testament, from Genesis to 2 Kings inclusive, were assigned to the first
Westminster company, consisting of ten members; from 1 Chronicles to Song
of Solomon, to the first Cambridge company, consisting of eight members;
and from Isaiah to Malachi, to the first Oxford company, consisting of
seven members. The Apocryphal books were assigned to the second Cambridge
company, which also consisted of seven members. Of the books of the New
Testament, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse were
given to the second Oxford company, in which as many as ten members were
at different times associated; the Epistles were entrusted to the seven
scholars forming the second Westminster company.[51]
The portions assigned to each company were not again subdivided amongst
its members; but, in accordance with the eighth rule, “every particular
man of each company” translated and amended by himself each successive
portion, and the company met from time to time to confer upon what they
had done, and to agree upon what should stand.[52] Of the mode of
procedure followed at the meetings of the several companies, we have no
other information than the brief statement given by Selden in his _Table
Talk_--that “one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands
some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian,
&c. If they found any fault they spoke; if not, he read on.”
One interesting and touching picture of the translators at work, which
however seems to have escaped the notice[53] of all writers upon the
history of the English Bible, is given us by Dr. Daniel Featley in his
account of the _Life and Death of John Rainolds_, and which is probably
the substance, if not the very words, of the oration delivered by him at
the funeral of the latter, when, on account of the large number of
mourners, “the Chapell being not capable of the fourth part of the
Funerall troupe,” a desk was set up in the quadrangle of Corpus Christi
College, and a brief history of Rainolds’ life, “with the manner of his
death,” was thence delivered to the assembled company. Dr. Rainolds was
one of the Oxford scholars to whom the difficult task was assigned of
revising the prophetical books of the Old Testament; and Featley tells us
that “for his great skill in the originall Languages,” the other members
of the company, “Doctor Smith, afterward Bishop of Gloster; Doctor
Harding, President of Magdalens; Doctor Kilbie, Rector of Lincolne
Colledge; Dr. Bret, and others, imployed in that worke by his Majesty, had
recourse” to him “once a weeke, and in his Lodgings perfected their
Notes; and though in the midst of this Worke, the gout first tooke him,
and after a consumption, of which he dyed; yet in a great part of his
sicknesse the meeting held at his Lodging, and he lying on his Pallet,
assisted them, and in a manner in the very translation of the booke of
life, was translated to a better life.”[54] Rainolds died May 21st, 1607.
In the discharge of their responsible task the translators made use of all
the aids accessible to them for the perfecting of their work. Not only did
they bring to it a large amount of Hebrew and Greek scholarship, and the
results of their personal study of the original Scriptures, they were
careful to avail themselves also of the investigations of others who had
laboured in the same field. Translations and commentaries in the Chaldee,
Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch
languages were laid under contribution. “Neither,” they add, “did we
disdaine to revise that which wee had done, and to bring back to the
anvill that which wee had hammered; but having and using as great helpes
as were needfull, and fearing no reproch for slownesse, nor coveting
praise for expedition, wee have at length, through the good hand of the
Lord upon us, brought the worke to that passe that you see.”
When the several companies had completed their labours there was needed
some general supervision of the work before it finally issued from the
press. There is no evidence that the six companies ever met in one body
(though possibly the two companies in each of the three centres may have
had some communication with each other); but having spent almost three
years upon the revision, “at the end whereof,” says the writer of the
life of John Bois,[55] “the whole work being finished, and three copies of
the whole Bible sent from Cambridge, Oxford, and Westminster to London, a
new choice was to be made of six in all, two out of every company,[56] to
review the whole work, and extract one copy out of all these to be
committed to the press, for the dispatch of which business Mr. Downes and
Mr. Bois were sent for up to London, where,[57] meeting their four
fellow-labourers, they went daily to Stationers’ Hall, and in
three-quarters of a year fulfilled their task, all which time they had
from the Company of Stationers thirty shillings[58] each per week duly
paid them, though they had nothing before but the self-rewarding,
ingenious industry.”[59] “Last of all Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and
Dr. Miles Smith, again reviewed the whole work, and prefixed arguments to
the several books.”
And thus at length, as Thomas Fuller quaintly puts it, “after long
expectation, and great desire, the new translation of the Bible (most
beautifully printed) by a select and competent number of Divines appointed
for the purpose, not being too many, lest one should trouble another,
and yet many, lest in any things might haply escape them. Who, neither
coveting praise for expedition, nor fearing reproach for slackness (seeing
in a business of moment none deserve blame for convenient slowness), had
expended almost three years in a work, not only examining the channels by
the fountain, translations with the original, which was absolutely
necessary, but also comparing channels with channels, which was abundantly
useful.” “These, with Jacob, rolled away the stone from the mouth of the
Well of Life, so that now Rachel’s weak women may freely come, both to
drink themselves, and to water the flocks of their families at the
same.”[60]
LECTURE V.
_REVISION A RECURRING NECESSITY._
On the title-page of the first edition of King James’s Bible there
appeared as now the legend, “Appointed to be read in Churches.” Whence
this originated is unknown; it is even uncertain what meaning is to be
attached to the words. Some contend[61] that they mean nothing more than
that the book contained the directions in accordance with which the
Scriptures were “appointed” to be read in public worship, such as are now
given in the Book of Common Prayer. But, however this may be, there is no
evidence that this Bible was ever formally sanctioned, either by the king,
or by Parliament, or by Convocation. The king, as we have seen, encouraged
the making of the revision, but that the revision when made was, by any
public act on his part, invested with any special authority, is a fancy
altogether unsupported by fact. Its designation as the Authorized
Version has been due simply to common parlance; the claim which that
designation seems to assert is absolutely baseless.
It was not in virtue of any privileges conferred upon it by those in
authority, but by its intrinsic excellence, that this version made its way
into general use, and at length supplanted all previous versions. Its
chief, if not only, competitor was the Genevan. So strong was the
attachment of many to the latter that two editions of it, one a folio and
the other a quarto, were published by the king’s printer in the very year
in which the new version was issued, and during at least five years after
that date[62] various other editions were issued from the same source.
After 1616 the Genevan ceased to be printed in England, but the demand for
it still continuing, various editions were printed on the Continent, and
thence introduced into this country. A folio edition, printed at
Amsterdam, bears so late a date as 1644. In 1649, in order to win the
favour of those who still clung to their old favourite, an edition of the
new version was issued with the Genevan notes. After this date the
revision of 1611 may be said to have gained for itself universal
recognition, and for more than 230 years it has been the accepted and
cherished Bible of almost all English-speaking people.
We should, however, form a very erroneous opinion both of the spirit and
of the learning of King James’s translators, if we were to suppose that
they would have claimed finality for their work. They were too well
acquainted with the state of the original texts not to know what need
there was for further research after the most ancient and trustworthy
authorities. They were too keenly sensitive to the difficulties of
translation not to feel that they must often have failed to convey the
exact meaning of the words they were attempting to render. They were too
conscious of the merits of their predecessors, and of the extent to which
they had profited by their labours, to hesitate to acknowledge that others
might in like manner profit by what they themselves had done. And they
were too loyal in their reverence for the Scriptures, and too devoutly
anxious that every imperfection should be removed from the form in which
they were given to their fellow-countrymen, to offer any discouragement to
those who should seek to remove the blemishes that might still remain.
They would strongly have deprecated any attempt to find in their labours a
plea against further improvement; and they would have emphatically
proclaimed that the best expression of thankfulness for their services,
and of respect for themselves, was in the imitation of their example, and
in the promotion of further efforts for the perfecting of the book they so
profoundly loved.
In the case of such a book as the Bible, however perfect the translation
which may at any time be made, the duty of revision is one of recurring
obligation. The necessity for it is inevitable, and this from two causes
in constant operation. (1) By the imperfection that attaches to all kinds
of human labour various departures from the standard form became gradually
introduced in the process of reproduction; and (2) by the natural growth
of language, and the attendant changes in the meaning of terms, that which
at one time was a faithful rendering becomes at another obscure or
incorrect.
No long time elapsed before blemishes arose in the version of 1611 from
the first of these causes, and, to use the language of the translators
themselves, their translation needed “to be maturely considered and
examined, that being rubbed and polished it might shine as gold more
brightly.” The invention of printing, although it has largely diminished
the liability to error in the multiplication of copies, has not, as
everyone knows who has had occasion to minutely examine printed works,
altogether removed them. Various typographical errors soon made their
appearance in the printed copies of the Bible, and these became repeated
and multiplied in successive editions, until at length no inconsiderable
number of variations, sometimes amounting to several thousands, could be
traced between different copies. Most of these it is true were unimportant
variations, but some of them were of a more serious nature. The following
instances will serve to illustrate this. The dates attached are the dates
of the editions in which the errors may be found:
Exod. xx. 14. “Thou shalt commit adultery,” _for_ “Thou shalt not.” 1631,
Lond., 8vo.[63]
Numb. xxv. 18. “They vex you with their wives,” _for_ “their wiles.” 1638,
Lond., 12mo.
Numb. xxvi. 10. “The fire devoured two thousand and fifty men,” _for_ “two
hundred and fifty.” 1638, Lond., 12mo.
Deut. xxiv. 3. “If the latter husband ate her,” _for_ “hate her.” 1682,
Lond.
2 Sam. xxiii. 20. “He slew two lions like men,” _for_ “two lion-like men.”
1638, Lond., 12mo.
Job xxix. 3. “By his light I shined through darkness,” _for_ “I walked
through.” 1613, Lond.
Isaiah xxix. 13. “Their fear toward me is taught by the people of men,”
_for_ “by the precept of men.” 1638, Lond., 12mo.
Jer. iv. 17. “Because she hath been religious against me,” _for_ “hath
been rebellious.” 1637, Edin., 8vo.
Jer. xviii. 21. “Deliver up their children to the swine,” _for_ “to the
famine.” 1682, Lond.
Ezek. xxiii. 7. “With all their idols she delighted herself,” _for_ “she
defiled herself.” 1613, Lond.
Matt. xxvi. 36. “Then cometh Judas with them unto a place called
Gethsemane,” _for_ “Then cometh Jesus.” 1611, Lond.
Acts vi. 3. “Look ye out among you seven men of honest report ... whom ye
may appoint,” _for_ “whom we may appoint.” 1638, Camb. fo.[64]
1 Cor. v. 1. “And such fornication as is not so much as not among the
Gentiles,” _for_ “not so much as named.” 1629, Lond., fo.[65]
1 Cor. vi. 9. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom
of God?” _for_ “shall not inherit.” 1653, Lond., 32mo.
2 Tim. iv. 16. “I pray God that it may be laid to their charge,” _for_
“may not be laid.” 1613, Lond.
Titus i. 14. “Now giving heed to Jewish fables,” _for_ “not giving heed.”
1636 Edin., 8vo.
James v. 4. “The Lord of Sabbath,” _for_ “Sabaoth.” 1640, Lond., 8vo.
1 John i. 4. “That our joy may be full,” _for_ “that your joy.” 1769, Oxf.
These facts will serve to show how soon some kind of revision became
needful, and that a true reverence for Scripture is shown, not by
opposition to revision, but by a desire, and even demand, that it should
be undertaken. This necessity became all the more imperative in the case
of the revision of 1611, because there existed no standard copy to which
appeal could in all cases be made as evidence of the conclusions reached
by the translators. It is a curious and remarkable fact, that two
editions, differing in several respects, were issued by the king’s
printer, Robert Barker, in 1611, and competent judges are not agreed as to
which of these two priority in time belongs. Nor even if this point were
satisfactorily settled, would it suffice to reproduce that one of the two
texts which might be proved to be the earlier. For excellent as was the
main work done by the translators, the final revision and the oversight of
the sheets as they passed through the press were not so thorough as was to
be desired. In the most carefully prepared edition of this revision that
has ever been issued, viz., the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, edited by Dr.
Scrivener, the learned and laborious editor has seen it right to depart
from the printed text of 1611 in more than nine hundred places.[66] It
will be manifest that such corrections, whenever called for, ought not to
be made in any haphazard way, and that it is in the interest of all that
careful revisions of the printed texts should from time to time be made,
and that they should be made by men thoroughly competent for the task.
* * * * *
The second cause to which reference has been made is, of course, much
slower in its operation, but though slow it is certain; and sooner or
later every version, whensoever and by whomsoever made, must call for
revision, because of the changes to which all language is subject. Words
which were once in common use pass altogether out of currency, and are
utterly unintelligible save to a learned few. Other words change their
meaning, and give to the sentences in which they occur a different and
sometimes an alien sense to that which they formerly conveyed. Others
again, while retaining fundamentally their original sense, become limited
in their range of application, and when used in other connections than
those to which they are thus confined by custom, become grotesque and
disturb the mind of the reader by the strange associations which they
suggest.
How many words found in our Bibles have, since 1611, passed out of general
use the following list will show. Most of these are wholly without
meaning, even to an educated reader; a few survive as local
provincialisms, and a few also are still employed in the technical
vocabulary of certain arts or professions. All are out of place in a book
intended for universal use.
_Assay._ Deut. iv. 34; Job iv. 2; Acts ix. 26, &c.
_Attent._ 2 Chron. vi. 40.
_Bestead._ Isa. viii. 21.
_Blain._ Exod. ix. 9, 10.
_Bolled._ Exod. ix. 31.
[_Brickle._ Wisd. xv. 13.]
_Brigandine._ Jer. xlvi. 4; li. 3.
_Bruit._ Jer. x. 22; Nah. iii. 19.
_Calamus._ Exod. xxx. 23; Cant. iv. 14; Exek. xxvii. 19.
_Camphire._ Cant. i. 14; iv. 13.
_Causey._ 1 Chron. xxvi. 18.
_Chanel-bone._ Job xxxi. 22, _marg._
_Chapiter._ Exod. xxxvi. 38, &c.
_Chapman._ 2 Chron. ix. 14.
_Chaws._ Ezek. xxix. 4.
[_Cithern._ 1 Macc. iv. 54.]
_Cockatrice._ Isa. xi. 8, &c.
_Collops._ Job xv. 27.
_Confection._ Exod. xxx. 35.
_Coney._ Lev. xi. 5, &c.
_To Convent._ Jer. xlix. 19, _marg._
_Cotes._ 2 Chron. xxxii. 28.
_To Couch._ Dent, xxxiii. 13.
_Countervail._ Esth. vii. 4.
_Daysman._ Job ix. 33.
[_Dehort._ 1 Macc. ix. 9.]
_Delicates._ Jer. li. 34.
_Dredge._ Job xxiv. 6, _marg._
_Dure._ Matt. xiii. 21.
_Earing._ Gen. xlv. 6.
_Endirons._ Ezek. xl. 43, _marg._
_Flue-net._ Hab. i. 15, _marg._
_Gier eagle._ Lev. xi. 18.
_Gorget._ 1 Sam. xvii. 6, _marg._
_Habergeon._ Exod. xxviii. 32; xxxix. 23, &c.
_Helve._ Deut. xix. 5.
_Hough._ Josh. xi. 6, 9.
_Implead._ Acts xix. 38.
_Jewry._ Dan. v. 13; John vii. 1.
_Knop._ Exod. xxv. 31, &c.
_Leasing._ Ps. iv. 2; v. 6.
_Makebate._ 2 Tim. iii. 3, _marg._
_Muffler._ Isa. iii. 19.
_Neesing._ Job xli. 18.
_Ossifrage._ Lev. xi. 13.
_Ouches._ Exod. xxviii. 11, &c.
_Pilled._ Gen. xxx. 37.
_Prelation._ 1 Cor. xiii., _heading_.
_Purtenance._ Exod. xii. 9.
_Ravin._ Gen. xlix. 27.
_Rereward._ Num. x. 25, &c.
_Scall._ Lev. xiii. 30.
_Scrabble._ 1 Sam. xxi. 13.
_A Settle._ Ezek. xliii. 14, &c.
_Silverling._ Isa. vii. 23.
_Sith._ Ezek. xxxv. 6.
_Tabering._ Nah. ii. 7.
_Tache._ Exod. xxvi. 6.
_Throughaired._ Jer. xxii. 14, _marg._
_Thrum._ Isa. xxxviii. 12, _marg._
_Viol._ Isa. v. 12.
_Wimple._ Isa. iii. 22.
A still larger number of words or phrases, though still finding a place in
our current speech, have wholly or partially changed their meanings.
Amongst these are the following:
_All to brake._ Judges ix. 5.
_Base._ 1 Cor. i. 28; 2 Cor. x. 1.
_Botch._ Exod. ix. 9.
_Bought of a sling._ 1 Sam. xxv. 29, _marg._
_Bravery._ Isa. iii. 18.
_Bray._ Prov. xxvii. 27.
_By and by._ Matt. xiii. 21; Luke xxi. 9.
_Captivate._ 2 Chron. xxviii.; Jer. xxxix., _headings_.
_Careful._ Dan. iii. 16; Phil. iv. 6.
_Carriage._ Judges xviii. 21; Acts xxi. 15.
_Cast about._ Jer. xli. 14.
_Chafed._ 2 Sam. xvii. 8.
_Champaign._ Deut. xi. 30.
_Charger._ Matt. xiv. 8; Mark vi. 25.
_Charity._ 1 Cor. xiii. 1, &c.
_Churl._ Isa. xxxii. 5, 7.
_Cieling._ 1 Kings vi. 15.
_Clouted._ Josh. ix. 5.
_Cockle._ Job xxxi. 40.
_Comfort._ Job ix. 27.
_Confectionary._ 1 Sam. viii. 13.
_Contain._ 1 Cor. vii. 9.
_Conversation._ Gal. i. 18; Phil. iii. 20; Heb. xiii. 5.
_Convince._ Jno. viii. 48; Jas. ii. 9.
_Cunning._ Ps. cxxxvii. 5.
_Curious._ Exod. xxviii. 8; xxix. 5.
_Damnation._ 1 Cor. xi. 29.
_Delicately._ Lam. iv. 5; Luke vii. 25.
_Discover._ Ps. xxix. 9; Mic. i. 6; Hab. iii. 13.
_Doctrine._ Mark iv. 2.
_Duke._ Gen. xxxvi. 15.
_Ensign._ Num. ii. 2; Isa. v. 26.
_Fast._ Ruth ii. 8, 21.
_Fetch a compass._ Acts xxviii. 13.
_Flood._ Josh. xxiv. 2, 3, &c.
_Footman._ Jer. xii. 5.
_Fret._ Lev. xiii. 55.
_Grudge._ Ps. lix. 15.
_Hale._ Luke xii. 58; Acts viii. 3.
_Harness._ 1 Kings xx. 11; xxii. 34.
_Indite._ Ps. xlv. 1.
_Jangling._ 1 Tim. i. 6.
_Kerchief._ Ezek. xiii. 18, 21.
_Lace._ Exod. xxviii. 28.
_Latchet._ Isa. v. 27; Mark i. 7.
_Let._ Exod. v. 24; Isa. xliii. 13; Rom. i. 13; 2 Thess. ii. 7.
_Lewd._ Acts xvii. 5.
_Lewdness._ Acts xviii. 14.
_Man-of-War._ Exod. xv. 3, &c.
_Maul._ Prov. xxv. 18.
_Minister._ Josh. i. 1; 1 Kings x. 5; Luke iv. 20.
_Napkin._ Luke xix. 20; John xi. 44; xx. 7.
_Naughtiness._ 1 Sam. xvii. 28; Prov. xi. 6; James i. 21.
_Naughty._ Prov. vi. 12.
_Nephew._ Judges xii. 14; 1 Tim. v. 4.
_Observe._ Mark vi. 20.
_Occupy._ Exod. xxxviii. 24; Judg. xvi. 11; Ezek. xxvii. 9; Luke xix.
13.
_Painfulness._ 2 Cor. xi. 27.
_Palestine._ Exod. xv. 14; Isa. xiv. 29.
_Pap._ Luke xi. 27; Rev. i. 13.
_Parcel._ Gen. xxxix. 19; Josh. xxiv. 32; Ruth iv. 3; John iv. 5.
_Peep._ Isa. viii. 19; x. 14.
_Poll._ Num. i. 2, &c.
_Pommel._ 2 Chron. ix. 12.
_Port._ Neh. ii. 13.
_Prefer._ Esth. ii. 9; Dan. vi. 3; John i. 25.
_Presently._ Matt. xxvi. 53; Phil. ii. 23.
_Prevent._ Ps. lix. 10; cxix. 147; 1 Thess. iv. 15.
_Proper._ Acts i. 19; 1 Cor. vii. 7; Heb. xi. 32.
_Prophesy._ 1 Cor. xi. 5; xiv. 3, 4.
_Publican._ Matt. v. 46, &c.
_Purchase._ 1 Tim. iii. 13.
_Ranges._ Lev. xi. 35.
_Refrain._ Prov. x. 19.
_Riot._ Titus i. 6; 1 Peter iv. 4; 2 Peter ii. 13.
_Rioting._ Rom. xiii. 13.
_Riotous._ Prov. xxiii. 20; Luke xv. 13.
_Road._ 1 Sam. xxvii. 10.
_Scrip._ 1 Sam. xvii. 40; Matt. x. 10, &c.
_Secure._ Judges viii. 11; xviii. 7, 10; Job xi. 18; xii. 6; Matt.
xxviii. 14.
_Set to._ John iii. 32.
_Shroud._ Ezek. xxxi. 3.
_Sod._ Gen. xxv. 29.
_Sottish._ Jer. iv. 22.
_Table._ Hab. ii. 2; Luke i. 63; 2 Cor. iii. 3.
_Target._ 1 Sam. xvii. 6; 1 Kings x. 16.
_Tire._ Isa. iii. 18; Ezek. xxiv. 17, 23.
_Tired._ 2 Kings ix. 30.
_Turtle._ Cant. ii. 12.
_Vagabond._ Gen. iv. 12; Ps. cix. 10; Acts xix. 13.
_Venison._ Gen. xxv. 28.
_Wealth._ 2 Chron. i. 12; Ps. cxii. 3; 1 Cor. x. 24.
_Witty._ Prov. viii. 22.
If, in reading these passages, we attach to the words here mentioned the
meaning that they ordinarily bear, the resulting sense will in each case
be very different from that intended to be conveyed by the translators. In
some of the passages the sense thus given will be so manifestly
inappropriate that the reader is necessarily driven to seek for some
explanation; but in others of them no such feeling may be awakened, and
the reader is undesignedly betrayed into error. Through no fault of the
translators, but by the inevitable law of change in language, the words
which once served as stepping-stones, by whose aid the reader could rise
to a clearer perception of the truth of God, have become stumbling-blocks
in his path, and cause him to wander from the way. Respect, therefore, for
the translators, as well as loyalty to the Scripture, constrain the demand
that these rough places be made plain.
LECTURE VI.
_ON THE IMPERFECT RENDERINGS INTRODUCED OR RETAINED IN THE REVISION OF
1611._
The two reasons for further revision which were illustrated in the last
lecture are, as will have been seen, of universal application, and must
sooner or later apply to every version of the Scriptures, however perfect
that version may have been when it was first made. But whatever the skill
with which King James’s translators fulfilled their labours (and it is
universally acknowledged to be worthy of the highest praise), it would be
a vain fancy to imagine that theirs was a perfect work. They themselves
would never have claimed such an honour for it, and already in their own
day some of their renderings were called in question by competent men.
Even if they had never failed in applying the means at their command for
the interpretation of the Hebrew and Greek originals, they knew that the
knowledge then possessed of these ancient tongues was far from complete,
and that by further study and advancing research it would be possible to
attain to a more accurate and extensive acquaintance with them.
The progress made in the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew during the last two
centuries has, in fact, been such as the revisers of 1611 could have
little anticipated. A long list might easily be drawn up of eminent
scholars who have given themselves to the investigation of the grammar of
the two sacred languages, and of others who have laboured in illustrating
the meaning of their terms. In the case of Hebrew, large additions to our
knowledge, both of its grammar and its vocabulary, have been won from a
source almost entirely unexplored in former times; namely, the study of
Arabic and other cognate languages; and in the case both of Hebrew and
Greek, much has been gained by the labours of those who have given
themselves to the investigation of the general principles of language, and
to the study of the relations which different languages sustain to each
other. The knowledge of Hebrew and Greek thus attained has been from time
to time applied by a still larger number of eminent men to the elucidation
of the several books of the Bible, and an immense amount of valuable
material for their interpretation has thus been stored up. The meaning of
obscure and difficult passages has been elaborately and independently
discussed by men of different nationalities, and of different types of
theological opinion, and in this way the sense of many passages formerly
misunderstood has been satisfactorily determined. And such being the case,
it is clearly the incumbent duty of all who truly reverence the Scriptures
to desire that these imperfections and obscurities shall be removed, and
the more so that some of these erroneous renderings have been used by the
opponents of the Bible as their weapons of attack.
That the reader may be able to form some definite judgment upon the matter
here presented to him, his attention is called to the following selection
of passages from different parts of the Bible, in which it will now be
generally acknowledged by competent judges that the translators of 1611
have failed to give a faithful representation of the meaning of the
original texts:
Gen. iv. 15 is rendered, in the version of 1611, as in previous versions:
“And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him,”
and no small amount of ingenuity has been wasted in the endeavour to
decide what this supposed mark upon the body of Cain might be. The
rendering moreover altogether misrepresented the import of the passage.
The “mark” or “sign” was not something intended for the warning of others,
but was given to remove the fears of Cain himself, expressed in verses 13,
14: “The Lord set a sign for Cain [to assure him] that whoever found him
would not kill him.”
Gen. xx. 16. Here Abimelech is made to say to Sarah, “Behold, I have given
thy brother a thousand _pieces_ of silver; behold, he is to thee a
covering of the eyes, with all that are with thee, and with all _other_;
thus she was reproved,” a statement which is both misleading and obscure.
It was not Abraham, but the present of money, that was to be for Sarah a
covering of the eyes, that is, a testimony to her virtue, and by this act
of the king she was not reproved for her conduct, but was cleared in her
character. The latter part should be rendered, “Behold, it shall be to
thee a covering of the eyes ... and thus she was righted.”
Exod. xvi. 15. “And when the children of Israel saw _it_, they said one to
another, It is manna, for they wist not what it was.” To the ordinary
reader this seems to involve a contradiction; but the stumbling-block is
at once removed by the more faithful rendering, “They said one to another,
What is it? for they wist not what it was.” Further on, in verse 31, it is
stated that from this cry, “What is it?” the bread from heaven thus given
to them was called Manna, or more correctly Man (the Hebrew word for
What?).
Josh. vi. 4. “And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets
of rams’ horns.” This is a very unfortunate rendering; for not only are
rams’ horns solid, and so also unsuitable for wind instruments, but also
it is only by the merest fancy that any reference to rams can be brought
in at all. The word rendered “rams” is “jubilee,” the same as that given
to the great Year of Release. It denotes either some kind of trumpet, and
is so used Exod. xix. 13, or the sound or signal given by a trumpet. The
Year of Release derives its name, the Year of Jubilee, from the solemn
sounding of trumpets throughout the land with which it was inaugurated.
The original term should here be kept, and the verse should read, “And
seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of jubilee.”[67]
Judges v. 7. “_The inhabitants of_ the villages ceased, they ceased in
Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.” Here
the translators first of all misunderstood the word which they have
rendered “villages,” and were then driven to introduce the words “the
inhabitants of,” for which, as the italics show, there was nothing in the
Hebrew. The picture really drawn in the verse is not that of the
depopulation of the country, but of the defenceless and disorganized
condition of the people through the absence of judges or rulers. The
Septuagint gives the true sense: “The rulers ceased, they ceased in
Israel.”[68]
Judges xv. 19. “But God clave an hollow place that _was_ in the jaw, and
there came water thereout.” A strange misrepresentation of the meaning of
the original. The hollow place was not in the jaw-bone with which Sampson
had slain the Philistines, but in some cliff in the neighbourhood, and
which derived its name, Ramath-lehi, or more briefly Lehi, from this
memorable exploit. The words should be rendered, “But God clave the hollow
place which is in Lehi.”
1 Sam. ix. 20. “And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago, set
not thy mind on them, for they are found. And on whom _is_ all the desire
of Israel? _Is it_ not on thee and on all thy father’s house?” A needless
difficulty is here created by suggesting that already the hearts of the
people had been set upon Saul for their future king, whereas his future
elevation to that office was as yet known to Samuel only. This is removed
by the right rendering: “Whose are all the desirable things of Israel? Are
they not for thee, and for thy father’s house.”[69]
2 Sam. v. 6. “Except thou take away the blind and the lame thou shalt not
come in hither;” a statement to which the reader finds it difficult to
attach any appropriate sense. The verse is correctly rendered by
Coverdale, who reads, “Thou shalt not come hither, but the blynde and lame
shall dryve thee awaie.”
2 Sam. xiv. 14. “For we must needs die, and _are_ as water spilt on the
ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect _any_
person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from
him.” The statement that God doth not respect _any_ person, however true
in itself, has here no relation to the context. The natural meaning of the
original words is very different, “God doth not take away life,” that is,
as shown by what immediately follows, does not at once and without mercy
inflict punishment as soon as guilt is incurred, but “deviseth means,” &c.
2 Kings viii. 13. “And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that
he should do this great thing?” Thus read, the words imply that Hazael
shrank indignantly from the actions described in the preceding verse;
whereas the sense of the passage is that he viewed himself as too
insignificant a person to do what he clearly regarded as a great exploit.
“But what is thy servant, the [or this] dog, that he should do this great
thing?”
1 Chron. xvi. 7. “Then on that day David delivered first _this psalm_ to
thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.” This conveys the
impression that the psalm which follows is the first psalm that David
published, whereas the statement is that on this memorable day--the day
on which David brought up the ark from the house of Obed-edom--he formally
appointed Asaph and his brethren to the office of superintending the
service of praise. (Compare verse 37.) “Then on that day David first gave
the praising of the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.”[70]
Job iv. 6. “Is not _this_ thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the
uprightness of thy ways?” By the insertion of “_this_,” a wrong complexion
is given to the passage. Eliphaz, in reference to Job’s fainting under his
sufferings, calls attention to the confidence he had formerly professed on
the ground of his fear of God and of the uprightness of his conduct; and
so indirectly suggests that Job’s piety and uprightness had been unreal.
“Is not thy fear [_i.e._ thy fear of God, thy piety] thy confidence; and
thy hope, _is it not_ even the integrity of thy ways?”
Job xix. 26. “And _though_ after my skin _worms_ destroy this _body_, yet
in my flesh shall I see God.” As the italics show, the original contains
nothing corresponding to the words “though,” “worms,” and “body.” Their
insertion does not indeed change radically the meaning of the verse, but
they weaken its force, and in a measure alter its imagery. The picture
presented by the original is a very vivid one. The patriarch, pointing to
his body wasting away under disease, says, “After my skin is destroyed
thus, yet from my flesh shall I see God.”
Job xxiv. 16. “In the dark they dig through houses, _which_ they had
marked for themselves in the daytime; they know not the light.” Here the
meaning of the second clause has been altogether missed, and the whole
passage is thereby greatly obscured. The writer is describing the deeds of
those who rebel against the light and love the darkness: as with the
murderer (_v._ 14) and the adulterer (_v._ 15), so is it with the robber.
“In the dark they dig through houses; in the daytime they shut themselves
up; they know not the light.”
Job xxxi. 35. “Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire _is_, _that_
the Almighty would answer me, and _that_ mine adversary had written a
book.” Job, having asserted his innocence, expresses his strong desire
that the charges against him might be brought for decision before the
divine tribunal. He, on his part, is quite prepared for the trial; there,
he says, is his statement, signed and sealed; let the adversary in like
manner present his indictment; he would then be sure of a triumphant
issue. “Oh that I had one who would hear me! Behold my mark! May the
Almighty answer me, and that I had the accusation that my adversary had
written. Surely, I would carry it on my shoulder, I would bind it as
chaplets upon me.”
Ps. xvi. 2, 3. “_Thou art_ my Lord; my goodness _extendeth_ not to thee.
_But_ to the saints that _are_ in the earth, and _to_ the excellent, in
whom is all my delight.” Every reader of this psalm must have felt how
obscure, if not unintelligible, are these words. A more faithful rendering
gives a clear and appropriate sense, “Thou art my Lord, I have no good
above thee. As for the saints on the earth, and the excellent, in them is
all my delight.”[71]
Ps. xlii. 4. “When I remember these _things_, I pour out my soul in me,
for I had gone with the multitude. I went with them to the house of God.”
The words of the Psalmist are not, as this rendering makes them to be, a
mere statement of what happens whenever he remembers the sorrows of the
past, and the mockery of his adversaries. They are a declaration of his
purpose to remember, with lively emotion and gratitude, the privileges and
mercies with which he had been blessed. “I will remember these things
[_i.e._ the things he is about to mention], and I will pour out my soul
within me, how I passed along with the multitude, how I went with them [or
how I led them] to the house of God.”
Ps. xlix. 5. “Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, _when_ the
iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?” This, though seemingly an
exact rendering of the Hebrew, wholly misleads the English reader. The
phrase, “iniquity of my heels,” can only suggest to him the iniquity which
the man himself has committed, a sense which is altogether unsuited to the
passage. The Psalmist would never say that his own personal transgressions
were not to him a ground of fear. The word, which in Hebrew means “heel,”
is that also which, by a slight modification, forms the name of the
patriarch Jacob, the “Heeler,” or supplanter of his brother. In the
opinion of many scholars, the simple form here used admits of the same
meaning, and they render, “when the iniquity of my supplanters [or the
iniquity of those who plot against me] compasseth me about.” Whatever be
the true explanation of the Hebrew phrase, it is quite certain that it is
the iniquity of others, and not of the speaker, which is referred to. Some
change, therefore, in the rendering is clearly called for.
Ps. xci. 9, 10. “Because thou hast made the Lord, _which is_ my refuge,
_even_ the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee,”
&c. The earlier English translations, the Bishops’, the Genevan, the Great
Bible, and Wycliffe’s, have all kept nearer to the original than this. The
most ancient version of all, the Septuagint, renders it correctly. The
psalm is one of those which are intended to be sung by two singers, or two
companies of singers, responding one to the other, and hence arises the
frequent change of person that occurs in it. In the first clause of this
verse we have one of the singers chanting, “For thou, O Lord, art my
refuge.” In the second clause we have the response of the other singer,
“Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall
thee,” &c., down to end of verse 13.
Eccl. iv. 14. “For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas, also, _he
that is_ born in his kingdom _becometh_ poor.” The meaning attached by the
Revisers of 1611 to the second clause seems to be, that the old and
foolish king referred to in the previous verse, who was “born in his
kingdom,” that is, who succeeded to the kingly power by inheritance,
becomes, through his obstinacy, a poor man. This sense can only be got
from the words by much straining, and has led to the introduction of the
word “becometh,” which represents nothing in the original.[72] The correct
rendering gives a plain and suitable sense: “For from the house of
prisoners he goeth forth to reign, although in his kingdom [namely, the
kingdom over which he now rules] he was born poor.”
Isa. lxiii. 19. “We are _thine_: thou never barest rule over them; they
were not called by thy name.” The sense of this passage is entirely
changed by the introduction of the word “thine.” The verse is the
penitential acknowledgment of the depressed condition into which the
nation had fallen in consequence of its sins. They are no longer as the
chosen inheritance (v. 17), they are as an alien people. The Genevan
translators give the true sense of the passage, “We have been [better, We
are become] as they over whom thou never barest rule, and upon whom thy
name was not called.”
Jer. iv. 1, 2. “If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return unto
me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then
shalt thou not remove. And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in
judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in
him, and in him shall they glory.” This as it stands is hopelessly
obscure. The passage is an emphatic announcement of the blessings that
would come to the nations from the penitent return of Israel to its
faithful allegiance. If Israel will return, will put away all its
abominations, and no longer swearing by idols, as if they were the highest
objects of reverence, should make in truth and uprightness their appeals
to Jehovah, then the nations would share in the blessedness of the
kingdom. “If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, wilt return unto
me, and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, and wilt
not go astray, and wilt swear, ‘The Lord liveth’ in truth, in judgment,
and in righteousness, then the nations shall bless themselves in him,” &c.
Ezek. x. 14. “And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of
a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the
face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.” This conveys a wrong
impression. The prophet is describing, not as he is here represented, the
four faces of all the cherubim, but one face only of each. The Bishops’
Bible gives the true sense by rendering, “Every one of them had four
faces, so that the face of the first was the face of a cherub, and the
face of the second was the face of a man, and of the third the face of a
lion, and of the fourth the face of an eagle.”
Ezek. xxii. 15, 16. “And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and
disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of
thee. And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself in the sight of the
heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.” The dark phrase, “thou
shalt take thine inheritance in thyself,” is commonly explained to mean,
that whereas aforetime they were God’s inheritance, they shall now be left
to find their inheritance by themselves. A more lucid and more suitable
meaning is given to the words by the rendering adopted by most modern
commentators, “thou shalt be profaned through thyself in the sight of the
nations.”
Dan. iii. 25. “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire,
and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of
God.” It is clearly misleading to attribute to Nebuchadnezzar any such
exalted conception as that which we attach to the phrase, “the Son of
God,” and so to render the clause misrepresents the original. The correct
translation is “one like to a son of the gods.” A similar error occurs in
vii. 13, where “one like the Son of man,” should be “one like a son of
man.”
Hos. vi. 3. “Then shall we know, _if_ we follow on to know the Lord;” thus
making the prophet to declare that the attainment of knowledge is
dependent upon our perseverance in the search after it. This is an
important truth, but is not the meaning of the verse, which is simply an
emphatic exhortation to know God and to persevere in knowing Him. “Yea,
let us know, let us follow on to know, the Lord.”
Hosea xiii. 14. “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy
destruction.” Though there is some difference of opinion respecting the
right rendering of the earlier part of this verse, all are agreed that
these should be rendered as they are quoted in 1 Cor. xv. 55, “Where are
thy plagues, O death? Where is thy destruction, O grave?”
Matt. vi. 16. The rendering “they disfigure their faces, that they may
appear unto men to fast,” misleads the reader by conveying the impression
that the Pharisees were endeavouring to obtain credit under false
pretences--were seeming to fast when not doing so in reality; whereas the
conduct condemned is that of parading, and calling public attention to,
their religious observances. “They disfigure their faces, that they may be
seen of men that they are fasting.”[73] So also in verse 18.
Matt. xi. 2. “Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ,
he sent two of his disciples.” Here the true force of the passage is
missed. “Christ,” as used by us, is a proper name, designating the person,
and not simply the office of our Lord. It was not because John had heard
of certain works done by Jesus of Nazareth that he sent his disciples to
Him, but because he recognized in the accounts which were brought to him
deeds characteristic of the Christ, the promised Messiah. “When John heard
in the prison the works of the Christ.”
Matt. xv. 3. “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your
tradition?” The commandment of God might indeed be transgressed by
compliance with the traditions of men, but this is not the meaning of our
Lord’s words. The Pharisees had asked why the disciples did not observe
the traditions of the elders respecting washing. Our Lord justifies them
by calling attention to the wrong doing of those who so exalted these
outward observations, in themselves mere matters of indifference, as on
their account to make void the commandments of God. “Why do ye also
transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”[74]
Mark vi. 20. “For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an
holy, and observed him.” This erroneous rendering has come down through
Tyndale, the Great Bible, and the Genevan, the last of these, however,
giving it in the less obscure form, “and did him reverence.” The passage
is rightly given by Wycliffe, “and kept him;” _i.e._ kept him in safety.
Luke i. 59. “And they called him Zacharias.” The form employed in the
Greek expresses that the action here spoken of was attempted only, not
completed, “they would have called him Zacharias.”
Luke xxi. 19. “In your patience possess ye your souls,” a translation
which altogether misses the meaning. The clause is not an exhortation to
the maintenance of a calm composure in trouble, but is an exhortation to
the acquirement of a higher and nobler life through the brave endurance of
suffering. “In your patience win ye your lives.” In the better texts this
is given in the form of an assurance: “In your patience ye shall win your
lives.”
Luke xxiii. 15. “No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and lo, nothing
worthy of death is done unto him.” Words unto which an intelligible sense
can be put only by straining them to mean that nothing had been done to
our Lord to show that in the judgment of Herod He was worthy of death. All
obscurity is removed by the more faithful rendering, “nothing worthy of
death hath been done by him.”
John iv. 27. “And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he
talked with the woman.” The surprise of the disciples was not occasioned
by the fact that our Lord was conversing with this particular woman; they
were surprised that He should talk with any woman. The correct rendering
is, as given by the Rheims, “and they marueiled that he talked with a
woman.”
John v. 35. “He was a burning and a shining light.” Though this, by
frequent quotation, has passed into a sort of proverbial phrase, it is a
most unfortunate rendering, and gives an entirely wrong impression of the
meaning of the passage. As thus read it sets forth the pre-eminence of
John, whereas its true import is to emphasize the subordinate nature of
his office and work. Christ, as stated in the first chapter of this
Gospel, was “the Light.” In comparison with Him, John was only a lamp
which, in order that it may give light, must first be kindled from some
other source. “He was the lamp which is kindled and [so] shineth.”
John xv. 3. “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto
you,” thus representing the word to be the instrument through which the
cleansing was wrought. But though this be true, it is not the truth here
set forth. It was not “through,” but “on account of” the word, _i.e._
because of its virtue and its cleansing power, that they were clean.
Here, again, Wycliffe is free from the error into which all the later
translators (except the Rheims) have fallen. He renders, “Now ye ben clene
for the word that I haue spokun to you.”
Acts ii. 23. “Ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain.” The ordinary reader naturally takes the “wicked hands” to be the
hands of the Jews, whereas the reference is to the Romans, through whose
agency the Jews brought about the crucifixion of Christ, “and by the hands
of lawless men, ye crucified and slew.” Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, the
Genevan, the Bishops, and the Rheims, all render this clause correctly.
Acts xi. 17. “Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as _he did_
unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is incorrect, and
suggests a false contrast between “us” and “them,” as if the latter were
not believers. Faith in Christ is the ground upon which, in the case of
both parties, the gifts referred to were received. The verse is thus given
by Tyndale: “For as moche then as God gave them lyke gyftes, as he dyd
unto vs when we beleved on the Lorde Iesus Christ.”
Acts xxvi. 23. “That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first
that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and
to the Gentiles.” This both needlessly suggests a difficulty to many
readers, and altogether conceals one main point of the passage; namely,
that the resurrection of Christ was the great source from which
illumination would come both to Jews and to Gentiles, “and that He first
by _His_ resurrection from the dead should proclaim light to the people
and to the Gentiles.”
Rom. ix. 3. “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my
brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Such a wish it is impossible
that the Apostle could have entertained. His words are the expression of
his strong affection for his fellow-countrymen. “I could have wished,”
&c.; _i.e._ if such a wish had been right or possible.
Rom. xiii. 11. “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to
awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we
believed.” This is ambiguous English, and though a very careful reader
might gather the true sense from this rendering, it is very liable to be
taken as if meaning that our salvation is nearer than we anticipated; nor
is the ambiguity removed by the Genevan, which reads, “nearer than when we
believed it.” The reference is to the time of their first exercise of
faith in Christ, “nearer than when we _first_ believed.”
1 Cor. i. 21. “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe.” This rendering has been a fertile source of error, as if
preaching was in itself, or as viewed by the Corinthians, an inappropriate
means for the diffusion of the Gospel, a thought altogether at variance
with the tone of the context, and with the facts of history. The Greeks
were, of all the peoples of antiquity, the least disposed to think lightly
of oratory, and the whole tenor of the passage shows that their tendency
was to overrate, not underrate, the power of speech. What was foolishness
to them was not the act of preaching, but the doctrine preached--salvation
through a crucified Christ. The Rheims here clearly enough gives the true
sense, “it pleased God by the folishnes of the preaching to saue them that
beleeue.”
1 Cor. ix. 5. “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well
as other apostles?” This mode of speech implies that some only of the
other apostles were married. What the Greek states is that all or most of
them were. Here again the Rheims correctly renders, “as also the rest of
the Apostles.”
2 Cor. v. 14. “Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were
all dead,” thus seeming to imply that the death of Christ upon the cross
is a proof that all men were in a state of spiritual death; whereas the
conclusion which the Apostle draws from the death of Christ is, that all
who truly believe in Him die to their old fleshly sinful life, “because
we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died.”
Eph. iii 10. “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in
heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”
It would only be after much careful consideration that the reader of these
words would discover that they cannot mean that the manifold wisdom of God
is to be known _by_ the Church. What the Apostle really states is, that it
was in the Divine purpose that through the Church the manifold wisdom of
God was to be made known to the angelic powers. Of all the ancient
versions the Rheims, though here, as usual, disfigured by its offensive
Latinisms, most clearly expresses the sense of the verse; its rendering
is, “that the manifold wisdom of God may be notified to the Princes and
Potentates in the celestials by the Church.”
Phil. iv. 3. “And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women
which laboured with me in the gospel.” This leaves it quite uncertain who
are the women referred to, whereas in the original it is plain that they
are the two women previously referred to, Euodia, and Syntyche; and the
reason why it is urged that assistance should be given to them, is that
they had bravely shared with Paul in the toil and conflict of the
Christian service. “Help them, for they have laboured with me in the
gospel.”
1 Tim. iv. 15. “Meditate upon these things.” This wholly fails to express
the apostle’s meaning. His exhortation goes beyond the region of thought;
it passes into the sphere of active life, and he urges Timothy to give
himself to the diligent practice of the several departments of labour
previously referred to. Of the old translators, Tyndale gives it
correctly, “These thynges exercyse.”
1 Tim. vi. 2. “And they that have believing masters, let them not despise
_them_, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because
they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.” The last clause
of this passage has, in all probability, grievously puzzled many a reader;
but with the fuller knowledge of the Greek syntax now possessed, all
obscurity passes away. No scholar would now hesitate in rendering, “do
them service because they who partake of the benefit are faithful and
beloved.”[75]
1 Tim. vi. 5. “Supposing that gain is godliness.” Here again an
unnecessary difficulty is introduced; for it is hard to see how any sane
person could consider “gain” to be “godliness.” On the other hand, it is
unhappily no uncommon experience to meet with persons who treat religion
as a means of worldly advantage, and it is to such the Apostle refers. The
correct rendering is, “supposing that godliness is gain.”[76]
Heb. iv. 2. “For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them,” a
rendering which at once raises the objection that “the Gospel,” in the
sense which ordinary readers attach to the term, was not preached to the
Israelites in the wilderness; nor does any reference to “the Gospel” occur
in the immediate context, but simply to the promise of entering into a
rest. The plain sense of the passage is, “unto us were good tidings
preached as well as unto them.”
Heb. viii. 5. “Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things.”
The introduction of the preposition “unto” almost entirely obliterates the
meaning of the clause; namely, that the Mosaic priesthood were the
ministers, not of the true sanctuary, but of that which is only its copy
and shadow. The Rheims correctly renders, “that serve the examplar and
shadow of heavenly things.”
Heb. xiii. 7, 8. “Whose faith follow, considering the end of their
conversation: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”
Here there is a double error; first, the connection of the last clause
with the preceding, as if it were intended to affirm that Christ was the
end of the conversation of their faithful pastors; and secondly, the wrong
sense thus given to the word “end,” which here denotes the “outcome” or
issue. The Hebrew Christians are urged to imitate the faith of their
pastors, considering the blessed issue of their Christian cause. Then
follows, as an independent statement, the assertion of the
unchangeableness of Christ, which, though not altogether disconnected in
thought with what precedes, stands in still closer connection with what
follows: “Considering the issue of their way of life, imitate their faith.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”
Such are some of the passages from which it may be said, that through the
emphatic unanimity of Biblical scholars all obscurity and doubt have been
removed. Their true meaning may now be affirmed with a confidence that
closely borders upon moral certainty. Through numerous commentaries and
other expository works, these results of scholarship are made widely
known, and they whose duty it is to expound these passages to others are
constrained to point out the imperfection that attaches to the renderings
given in the English Bible now ordinarily used. It is obviously a most
undesirable thing that the teacher or preacher should be placed under such
a necessity. It is not at all times easy so to discharge the duty as that
he shall give no offence even to educated hearers; while the simple-minded
and unlearned are painfully perplexed; and, unprepared as they are to
estimate the limits of possible error, seem to themselves to be launched
upon a boundless sea of uncertainty. Revision, therefore, becomes
imperative, both for the sake of removing acknowledged blemishes, and also
for reassuring the anxious that they are trusting to a faithful guide, and
for showing to them how little, comparatively, there is in their beloved
Book that needs to be changed.
LECTURE VII.
_ON THE ORIGINAL TEXTS, AS KNOWN IN 1611, AND AS NOW KNOWN._
Another, and distinct, class of reasons for the further revision of the
English Bible, arises from the more abundant material now possessed for
the determination of the original text of Scripture than was within the
reach of the Revisers of 1611.
Even if these honoured men had perfectly fulfilled their work, and had
never erred in their interpretation of the sacred books, the result of
their labours would still be open to correction because of the less
perfect form of the texts which they set themselves to translate. The
exact words used by the inspired writers are, as was stated in the first
lecture, not now to be found in any one book or manuscript. They have to
be gathered from varied sources, by long and careful labour, demanding
much skill and learning. These sources, moreover, are so numerous that the
investigation of them can be accomplished only by a large division of
labour, no one life being long enough for the task, and no one scholar
having knowledge enough to complete it alone. Nevertheless, it is well
that our sources are thus extensive. Had one copy only of the books of the
Old and New Testament come down to us, then, indeed, we should have been
freed from the necessity of this manifold and laborious research, but
unless this were the original copy itself, we should have had no means
whereby to detect and to remove the errors which had crept in from the
human imperfections of the transcribers. And though none of these errata
might in any serious degree have affected the great truths which the Bible
conveys to us, or have diminished our estimate of its surpassing worth,
they would have been as blots upon its pages which our love and reverence
for it would long to see removed. The greater the number and variety of
our resources, the greater is our ability, by the examination and
comparison of their differences, to remove these blemishes; and the
greater also is the confidence we are able to feel in the absolute
correctness of those far more numerous and extensive passages in which our
authorities agree. And hence, though the toil imposed upon us is so
largely multiplied thereby, we cannot but rejoice in the number and extent
of our authorities, and we gather therefrom a fresh illustration of the
saying, that “in all labour there is profit.”
The sources, whence our knowledge of the original texts is chiefly
derived, are three in number: (1) Manuscripts containing one or more of
the books of Scripture; (2) Ancient Versions of the Bible; and (3)
Quotations of Scriptural passages found in the works of early Christian
writers.
* * * * *
Respecting our Manuscript Authorities, the first fact claiming emphatic
notice is, that while in the case of the classic poets, philosophers and
historians, the extant manuscript copies are numbered by tens and
sometimes even by units, those of the Scriptures are numbered by hundreds.
Of the New Testament alone nearly eighteen hundred manuscripts have been
catalogued and more or less carefully examined. Of these 685 are
manuscripts of the Gospels, 248 contain the Acts and Catholic Epistles,
298 the Pauline Epistles, and 110 the Apocalypse; 428 are Lectionaries or
service books of the Greek church, 347 of which contain passages from the
Gospels and 81 passages from the Acts and the Epistles. Thus while our
knowledge of the interesting narratives of Herodotus is dependent upon
five or six authorities only, and the history of Livy upon eight or nine
only (and none of these contain the whole even of the portions
extant),[77] our knowledge of the life and words of our Lord is drawn from
over a thousand manuscript authorities, and of which the larger part
contain the whole of the four Gospels.
In antiquity again the manuscripts of the New Testament far surpass those
of classical authors. Few, if any, of the latter are older than the ninth
or tenth century, while of the former we have copies belonging to the
fourth and fifth centuries. The oldest manuscripts are written in capital
letters, and on this account are called uncial[78] manuscripts, or briefly
uncials. Later manuscripts are written in a smaller character, and in a
style approaching to what we call a running hand, and are hence named
cursives. Of uncial manuscripts, containing portions of the New Testament,
one hundred and fifty-eight have been examined and catalogued. Some of the
most valuable of these have been published under the superintendence of
careful editors. Others have been thoroughly examined, and their
variations so faithfully noted and recorded, that a private student is,
for most practical purposes, placed in the same position as the possessor
of the manuscript itself. This work is technically described as
_collation_, and the amount of painstaking labour spent upon the collation
of Biblical manuscripts during the past two hundred years, and especially
in the last forty or fifty years, is simply enormous. To one who has never
examined a document written many centuries ago it is difficult to convey
any adequate notion of the amount of time and labour involved in the
collation even of a single manuscript. The unusual and varying forms of
the letters, the indistinctness of the characters, the various
contractions employed by the scribe, and, as is the case with our most
ancient documents, the non-separation of word from word, and the absence
of stops, render the mere task of deciphering the manuscript very
difficult and painfully wearying to the eyes.[79] Much watchful attention
is also demanded, as well as a good knowledge of the language, in making
the proper separation of the words, and in judging aright of any
peculiarities of spelling that may attach to the writer. In making the
collation of any Biblical manuscript--say of the New Testament--the course
generally pursued is as follows: The collator procures a printed copy of
the Greek text, commonly of some well-known edition, and in the margin of
this he marks all the variations of the manuscripts from the printed text
before him, whether of omission, addition, or otherwise, including even
variations in spelling. He also marks carefully where each line and page
of the manuscript begins and ends, what corrections or alterations have
been made in it, whether these were made by the original writer or by a
later hand; and where several handwritings may be detected, he specifies
and distinguishes these. All this is done with so much minuteness that it
would be possible for the collator to reproduce the original manuscript in
every respect save in the shape of the letters and the appearance of the
parchment or paper.
Of the uncial manuscripts of the New Testament, the most ancient and
important are the SINAITIC,[80] written in the fourth century, and now
deposited in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg; the VATICAN,[81]
also of the fourth century, and preserved in the Vatican Library at Rome;
the ALEXANDRINE,[82] of the fifth century, now in the British Museum; the
EPHRAEM CODEX,[83] of the fifth century, in the National Library at Paris;
BEZA’S CODEX,[84] of the sixth century, in the University Library,
Cambridge; and the CLAROMONTANE,[85] also of the sixth century, which
formerly belonged to Beza, but is now in the National Library at Paris. As
will be seen presently, only two of these most ancient manuscripts were
available for the preparation of the text from which the translators of
1611 made their revision. The Alexandrine was not brought to light until
1628, when it was presented to Charles I. by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of
Constantinople. Although the Ephraem Codex was brought to Europe in the
early part of the sixteenth century, it was not known to contain a portion
of the New Testament until towards the close of the seventeenth century,
and was not collated until the year 1716. The Sinaitic was discovered by
Dr. Tischendorf, in the Convent of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, so
recently as February 4th, 1859. And the Vatican, though deposited in the
Library at Rome in the fifteenth century, was, during a long time, so
jealously guarded by the Roman authorities, that little use could be made
of it. Now, however, all these six important manuscripts have been edited
and published, some in the ordinary style of printing, and some in _quasi
fac-simile_. At the present time, by the application of the processes of
photography, an exact copy of the Alexandrine is in course of preparation,
and the New Testament portion has been successfully completed.
In these and other ways, by the laborious efforts of many English and
Continental scholars, an immense amount of material for the determination
of the sacred text has been gathered together and safely garnered; and
knowledge which aforetime could be attained only by slow and wearisome
effort, by many long journeys to distant places, and by much personal
search amongst the books and papers stored away in national and other
libraries, can now be attained with comparative ease by the solitary
student in his study. At the time when King James’s translators entered
upon their work a small fraction only of this mass of material was
available, and even that fraction was but imperfectly used. The means were
not then possessed for correctly judging of the relative value of the
several documents, nor had experience given the skill to discriminate
wisely between varying testimony.
The translators of 1611 have left on record no statement respecting the
Greek text from which they translated, but as far as can be gathered from
internal evidence they contented themselves with accepting the forms of it
which they found ready at hand. Of these the two then held in highest
repute were those connected with the names of Theodore Beza and Robert
Stephen. These, in their turn, were based upon the two primary editions of
the printed text, the Complutensian and Erasmus’s, editions which were
made quite independently of each other. The Complutensian was the first
printed, though not the first published.[86] It formed the fifth volume of
the splendid Polyglot prepared under the munificent patronage of Cardinal
Ximenes, at Alcala, in Spain, from the Latin name of which city
(Complutum) it derives its designation, and was completed January 10th,
1514. It is not now known from what manuscripts the text of this edition
was derived, but it may be confidently affirmed that none of our most
ancient authorities were used. They were probably not many in number, and
were all what in this connection is termed modern; that is to say, not
earlier than the tenth century. The first _published_ edition of the
Greek New Testament was that edited by the celebrated Erasmus, and sent
forth from the press of Froben, in Basle, February 24th, 1516. This was
derived from six manuscripts, five of which are now in the public library
of Basle, and one[87] in the library of the Prince of
Oettingen-Wallerstein. Of these one, and the most valuable, contained the
whole of the New Testament except the Apocalypse, but of this Erasmus made
but little use. Of the rest, one contained the Gospels only, two the Acts
and the Epistles only, one the Epistles of Paul only, and one the
Apocalypse only. It will thus be seen that in the Gospels the text given
by Erasmus rested almost entirely upon the authority of a single
manuscript; in the Acts and Catholic Epistles upon that of two only; in
the Epistles of Paul upon three; and in the Apocalypse upon one only, and
that an imperfect one. The last six verses were wanting, and these Erasmus
supplied by translating them into Greek from the Latin of the Vulgate. The
work too was hastily done. The proposal to undertake it was made to
Erasmus April 17th, 1515, so that less than ten months were given to the
preparation of the volume, and this, too, at a time when Erasmus was
busied with other engagements; an unseemly haste that we may probably
ascribe to the publishers’ eager desire to get the start of the
Complutensian. Revised editions were published in 1519 and 1522, in the
preparation of which the aid of a few additional manuscripts was obtained.
These, again, were further revised by the aid of the Complutensian, which
then became available, in an edition which Erasmus published in 1527.
The next stage in the history of the printed text of the Greek New
Testament is marked by the publication at Paris, in 1550, of the handsome
folio of the celebrated and learned printer, Robert Stephen.[88] He tells
us in his preface that in the preparation of this edition he made use of
the Complutensian and of fifteen manuscripts. Two of these were ancient,
one that is now known as Beza’s Codex, which had been collated for him by
a friend in Italy, and another, a manuscript in the National Library of
Paris, written in the eighth or ninth century, and containing the four
Gospels;[89] the rest were modern, and all were but imperfectly
collated.[90]
After the death of Robert Stephen (1559)[91] the work of revision was
carried on by Theodore Beza, who, like the former, had embraced the
Protestant cause, and like him also had found a home in Geneva. His first
edition was published in this city in 1565, a second in 1582, a third in
1589, and a fourth in 1598. In the preparation of these he had in his
possession the collations made for Robert Stephen, and, in addition, the
ancient manuscript of the Gospels and Acts which now bears his name; and
for the Pauline Epistles, the equally ancient Claromontane. Beza’s
strength, however, lay rather in the interpretation, than in the
criticism, of the text, and he made but a slight use of the materials
within his reach.
It will thus be seen how small, comparatively, was the manuscript
authority for the text used by King James’s translators. In the main they
follow the text of Beza; sometimes, however, they give the preference to
Stephen’s; in some few places they differ from both. By what principles
they were guided in their choice we do not know. They do not appear to
have set on foot any independent examination of authorities, and when they
forsake their two guides they commonly follow in the wake of some of the
earlier English versions.
But, as already stated, manuscripts are not the only source whence we
derive our knowledge of the original texts. Translations of the Scriptures
were made at an early date; some at an earlier date than that of the
oldest manuscripts now extant. Two of these were referred to in the first
lecture; namely, the old Latin and the old Syriac, both of which belong to
the second century, and give, therefore, most important testimony as to
the words of Scripture at that early period. Next to these in point of age
may be placed the two Egyptian versions, one in the language of Lower
Egypt, and called the Memphitic (or Coptic), and the other in that of
Upper Egypt, and called the Thebaic (or Sahidic). In the opinion of
competent judges, some portions, at least, of the Scriptures must have
been translated into these dialects before the close of the second
century; in their completed form these versions may be referred to the
earlier part of the third century. A Gothic version of the Scriptures was
made in the fourth century by Ulphilas, who was Bishop of the Moeso-Goths
348-388; and of this some valuable portions are still extant. Two other
ancient versions, the Armenian (cent. 5), and the Æthiopic (cents. 6 and
7), though of inferior importance, are not without value. During recent
years a large amount of labour has been spent, first, in securing as
accurate a knowledge as possible of the text of these various versions,
and then in investigating the evidence they supply respecting the original
texts from which they were severally made. From this source much valuable
material has been obtained supplementary to that furnished by Biblical
manuscripts.
The works of early Christian writers contain, as might be expected, large
quotations of Scripture passages. Some of these works are elaborate
expositions of various books of the Old and New Testament, and others are
controversial writings in which there is a frequent necessity for
appealing to Scriptural authorities. Although not a few of the writings of
the earliest Christian authors have perished, we have still a
considerable collection of writings belonging to the second and third
centuries, whose pages supply us with valuable evidence concerning the
text of the New Testament, of a date earlier than the oldest of our
manuscripts. We have also a still larger collection of writings belonging
to the same age as that of our most ancient manuscripts, and from them are
able to gather a further mass of testimony in confirmation or correction
of that given by these venerable documents.
The writings of Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen,
belonging to the latter part of the second century, and the beginning of
the third, contain a large body of quotations from the Gospels and
Epistles. The works of Origen alone may, with scarcely any exaggeration,
be said to be equivalent to an additional manuscript of the New Testament.
He died about A.D. 253 or 254, and during his entire life gave himself
with a most indomitable perseverance to Biblical studies. In addition to
an elaborate revision of the Greek text of the Septuagint, upon which he
spent eight and twenty years, but of which unhappily some fragments only
have reached us, he composed expositions or homilies upon the larger part
of the books of the Old and New Testaments. Of these some very
considerable portions have come down to us, and as his expositions on the
Old Testament abound in quotations from the New, the number of passages
from the latter found in his writings is very large.
Of writers belonging to the fourth century we have commentaries in Greek
by Chrysostom and Didymus, and in Latin by Hilary of Rome, and Jerome;
and, in addition, extensive theological treatises, involving numerous
appeals to the Scriptures, by Athanasius, Ambrose, Basil, Epiphanius, and
the two Gregorys.
In the following century we have the Greek commentaries of Theodore of
Mopsuestia and Theodoret; the commentary of Pelagius on the Epistles of
Paul; and the voluminous writings of Augustine, including commentaries on
the Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, John’s Gospel and Epistles, and
Paul’s Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, together with a large number
of Homilies on various parts of Scripture. These numerous writings form a
mine of wealth to the Biblical critic; but it is a mine that has only been
diligently worked in comparatively recent years. Much wearisome toil has
been necessary in bringing to light its treasures, and these were either
overlooked or neglected by the earlier editors of the Greek New Testament.
It may perhaps be thought that, inasmuch as the documents from which these
Christian writings are obtained are themselves of a later date, the
testimony they give to the text of Scripture is of no higher worth than
that of Biblical manuscripts of the same age. The scribes, it may be said,
would be influenced by the form of text then current, and in copying these
writings would naturally, when Scripture quotations occurred, give them in
the form with which they were familiar. To some extent this may have been
the case, and the testimony of these writings is of less weight when they
simply reflect the form of text which prevailed at the date when they were
copied. But then, on the other hand, their testimony is for the same
reason proportionally the stronger whenever they do not agree with the
current form, but give a different reading. Moreover it must be remembered
that in many cases the authors comment minutely upon the Scripture text,
and that here their testimony is quite unaffected by any tendency on the
part of the copyist to use a familiar form, the comment itself showing
beyond all doubt what was the form of the text which the author was
expounding. In all such places the testimony of these early writers is
especially valuable.
From this mere outline of the manifold researches which scholars have made
during the years that have passed since the Revision of 1611 was issued,
some notion may be gathered of the extent to which our resources for the
satisfactory determination of the sacred text have been multiplied. It
will hence be seen how great is the confidence with which we are thereby
enabled to affirm the verbal correctness of that far larger portion of the
text in which our numerous and varied authorities are all agreed, and with
what confidence also we can place our finger upon certain blemishes, and
say that here an error has crept in through the inadvertence, or
carelessness, or ignorance of the transcriber. If then there were no other
reasons for the revision of the English Bible, this alone would be a
sufficient ground for it. When it is in the power of any one to say that
there are passages in our common Bibles which, as there given, are found
in no Greek manuscript whatever, as is the case in Acts ix., the latter
part of verse 5, and the beginning of verse 6; 1 Peter iii. 20; Heb. xi.
13; and Rev. ii. 20; and when there are other passages, respecting which
the evidence is greatly preponderating, that they ought to have no place
in the text, as is the case with Matt. vi. 13; Matt. xvii. 21; Matt.
xxiii. 35 (last clause); Mark xv. 28; Luke xi. 2, 4 (the last clause of
each verse); John v. 3 (last clause), and 4; Acts viii. 37; Acts xv. 34;
Acts xxviii. 29; Rom. xi. 6 (last clause); 1 Cor. vi. 20 (last clause); 1
Cor. x. 28 (last clause); Gal. iii. 1 (second clause); Heb. xii. 20; and 1
John v., from “in heaven,” verse 7, to “in earth,” verse 8. When these
things can be said, and can be truly said, then all true lovers of the
Bible will earnestly demand that they be forthwith removed.
LECTURE VIII.
_THE PREPARATIONS FOR FURTHER REVISION MADE DURING THE PAST TWO
CENTURIES._
It has not been left to the present generation to be the first to
recognize the force of the various considerations presented in the
previous lectures. The duty of providing for a further revision of the
English Bible has been handed down as a solemn trust from generation to
generation. Every new discovery made of Biblical manuscripts, and every
fresh field of research opened up, has at once made the need of revision
more apparent, and given intensity to the desire that it should be
undertaken; and, in their turn, this quickened desire and this increase of
material have prompted to renewed efforts in obtaining all possible
subsidiary helps. In this way it has come to pass that the whole period
which has elapsed since the publication of the Revision of 1611 has been
in effect a time of preparation for another and further revision, and
here, as elsewhere, the divine law of human discipline has been verified,
that every work accomplished is but the starting-point for fresh
endeavours.
In this work of preparation four distinct stages may be clearly traced:
the first, that of unfriendly criticism; the second, that of premature
attempts at correction; the third, that of diligent research and patient
investigation; and the fourth, that of widespread conviction of the
desirableness of further revision, and the discussion of the plans by
which it may best be accomplished.
From the very first the new version had to undergo an ordeal of
criticism, springing sometimes from personal pique, sometimes from party
prejudice, sometimes from a one-sided attachment to a favourite doctrine,
the evidence for which seemed to be obscured by the rendering given to
certain passages. Almost immediately upon the publication of the volume, a
violent attack was made upon it by Hugh Broughton, who, though a man of
immense erudition, and one of the best Hebraists of the day, was of so
overbearing a temper that his offer to aid in the revision had been
declined. Broughton declared that the version was so ill done that it bred
in him a sadness which would grieve him whilst he breathed. “Tell his
Majesty,” he passionately said, “that I had rather be rent in pieces with
wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged on
poor churches.”
In the sharp controversies of the Commonwealth period the slight
indications given by the version of a certain ecclesiastical bias were
unduly exaggerated. Charges of a direct prelatic influence were freely
made, and various rumours were circulated, as if upon good authority, that
Archbishop Bancroft had taken upon himself to introduce alterations in
opposition to the judgment, and even the protest of the translators.
Influenced probably by the feeling thus awakened, though not sharing it,
Dr. John Lightfoot, in a sermon preached before the Long Parliament on
August 26th, 1645,[92] expressed the hope that they would find some time
among their serious employments to think of a “review and survey of the
translation of the Bible.” “And certainly,” he added, “it would not be the
least advantage that you might do to the three nations, if they, by your
care and means, might come to understand the proper and genuine reading of
the Scriptures by an exact, vigorous, and lively translation.”
In 1653 the charge that the New Testament “had been looked over by some
Prelates, to bring it to speak the Prelatical language,” was formally
repeated in the preamble of a Bill brought before the Long Parliament,
which proposed the appointment of a committee “to search and observe
wherein that last translation appears to be wronged by the Prelates or
printers or others.”[93] In 1659 a folio volume of 805 pages, entitled,
“An Essay toward the Amendment of the Last English Translation of the
Bible, or a Proof by many instances that the last Translation of the Bible
into English may be improved,” was published by Dr. Robert Gell, “Minister
of the Parish of St. Mary, Alder-Mary, London.” Dr. Gell was a man who
stoutly maintained the doctrine that it is “possible and attainable
through the grace of God and His Holy Spirit that men may be without sin,”
and his book is an elaborate attempt to show that this doctrine “was
frequently delivered in holy Scripture, though industriously obscured by
our translators.” An attack of another kind was made a quarter of a
century later, by a Roman Catholic writer named Thomas Ward, who,
repeating many of the charges made against the earlier English versions by
Gregory Martin, one of the authors of the Rhemish version, charged the
translators with corrupting the Holy Scriptures by false and partial
translations, for the purpose of gaining unfair advantage in the
controversy with the Church of Rome.[94]
These hostile criticisms, though made in a spirit of partisanship and
marred by much uncharitableness and unfairness, were nevertheless of
service. They forced upon all, though in a rude and unpleasant way, the
recognition of the fact that the new version, with all its excellences,
was still the work of fallible men; and despite their passion and their
hard words, they did undoubtedly hit some blots that here and there
disfigured the sacred page. To this extent they served to prepare the way
for further revision.
A second stage in the process of preparation is seen in the various
attempts which have been made to produce a version which should remove
acknowledged blemishes, and more faithfully convey the meaning of the holy
Word. Some of these have been based upon a well-conceived plan, and have
sought to accomplish the desired end by the united efforts of a band of
fellow-labourers; others have been the work of individual scholars, and
were for the most part of a tentative character, intended simply to show
what ought to be attempted, and how it might be done; others, again, have
been the unwise labours of men who worked upon false principles, and with
insufficient knowledge; but all have in their own way helped on the work,
the former two classes by their felicitous renderings of some passages,
and the light they have thrown upon the meaning of others, and the last
mentioned class by their clear demonstration of what a translation of the
Scriptures ought certainly not to be.
The first[95] serious attempt at a further revision was made by the Rev.
Henry Jessey, M.A., pastor of that greatly persecuted Congregational
Church in Southwark, which had been gathered by Henry Jacob in 1616. In
the time of the Commonwealth proposals were made by Jessey, that “godly
and able men” should be appointed by “public authority” “to review and
amend the defects in our translation.” Pending their appointment, he set
himself to secure the co-operation of a number of learned men, at home and
abroad, writing to them in the following fashion: “There being a strange
desire in many that love the truth, to have a more pure, proper
translation of the originals than hitherto; and I being moved and inclined
to it, and desirous to promote it with all possible speed and exactness,
do make my request (now in my actual entrance on Genesis) that as you love
the truth as it is in Jesus, and the edification of saints, you with
others (in like manner solicited), will take share and do each a part in
the work, which being finished will be fruit to your account.” Of the
names of his fellow-workers the only one recorded is that of Mr. John Row,
Hebrew professor at Aberdeen, “who took exceeding pains herein,” and who
drew up the scheme in accordance with which the work was carried on.
Jessey’s proposal received at least so much of support from “public
authority,” that he was one of the committee whose appointment was
recommended to the House of Commons in 1653. The result is thus quaintly
told by Jessey’s biographer:[96] “Thus thorow his perswasions many persons
excelling in knowledge, integrity, and holiness, did buckle to this great
Worke of bettering the Translation of the Bible, but their names are
thought fit at present to be concealed to prevent undue Reflections upon
their persons; but may come to light (if that work shall ever come to be
made publick), and unto each of them was one particular book or more
allotted, according as they had leisure, or as the bent of their Genius,
advantages of Books or Studies lay, which when supervised by all the rest,
dayes of assembling together were to have been set apart, to seek the Lord
for His further direction, and for conference with each other touching the
matter then under consideration. In process of time this whole work was
almost compleated, and stayed for nothing but the appointment of
Commissioners to examine it, and warrant its publication.” The death of
Cromwell, and the political events which followed, prevented the
realization of Jessey’s hopes. It had been with him the work of many years
of his life, and his soul was so engaged in it that he frequently uttered
the prayer, “O that I might see this done before I die.”
The ecclesiastical events arising out of the Act of Uniformity (1662) will
sufficiently account for the absence of any efforts of revision during the
latter part of the seventeenth century. In the earlier part of the
following century there appeared one of those ill-advised attempts, whose
chief use is to serve as a beacon of warning, in the Greek and English New
Testament, published A.D. 1729, by W. Mace, M.D.[97] In his translation
this author allowed himself to employ an unpleasantly free style of
rendering, and deemed it fitting to substitute the colloquial style of the
day for the dignified simplicity of the version he undertook to amend.
Towards the latter part of the century a considerable number of well-meant
endeavours at revision were made by devout and scholarly men.
In 1764 “A new and literal Translation of the Old and New Testament, with
notes, critical and explanatory,” was published by Anthony Purver, a
member of the Society of Friends.
In 1770 there was issued “The New Testament, or New Covenant of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from the Greek according to the
present idiom of the English tongue, with notes and references,” by John
Worsley, of Hertford, whose aim, as stated in his preface, was to bring
his translation nearer to the original, and “to make the present form of
expression more suitable to our present language,” adding, with a laudable
desire to repudiate all sympathy with those who forced the Scripture to
say what, according to their own fancies, it ought to say, “I have no
design to countenance any particular opinions or sentiments. I have
weighed, as it were, every word in a balance, even to the minutest
particle, begging the gracious aid of the Divine Spirit to lead me into
the true and proper meaning, that I might give a just and exact
translation of this great and precious charter of man’s salvation.”[98]
In 1781 Gilbert Wakefield, late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, but
then classical tutor of the Warrington Academy, published “a new
translation of the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians,
offered to the public as a specimen of an intended version of the whole
New Testament, with a preface containing a brief account of the Author’s
plan.” This was followed in 1782 by a new translation of the Gospel of
Matthew, and in 1791 by a translation of the whole of the New
Testament.[99]
In 1786 a Roman Catholic clergyman (the Rev. Alexander Geddes, LL.D.)
issued a prospectus of “a New Translation of the Holy Bible from corrected
texts of the originals, compared with the Ancient Versions.” This
prospectus was very favourably received by many of the leading Biblical
scholars of the day, especially by the great Hebraist, Dr. Benjamin
Kennicott, Canon of Christchurch, and by Dr. Robert Lowth, Bishop of
London, and was followed in 1788 by formal proposals for printing the book
by subscription. The first volume appeared in 1792, with the title “The
Holy Bible, or the Books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians;
otherwise called the Books of the Old and New Covenants, faithfully
translated from corrected texts of the Originals, with various readings,
explanatory notes, and critical remarks.” Two other volumes were
afterwards published; but the death of the author, in 1801, prevented the
completion of the work.[100]
In 1796 Dr. William Newcome, Archbishop of Armagh, published “An attempt
towards revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures, or the
New Covenant of Jesus Christ; and towards illustrating the sense by
philological and explanatory notes.”
Passing over some other works less worthy of notice, a scholarly attempt
was made in 1836 by Grenville Penn to introduce into the English version
some of the results which had then been attained by the critical
examination of ancient authorities. This work bore the title, “The Book of
the New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, being a critical
revision of the text and translation of the English version of the New
Testament, with the aid of most ancient manuscripts, unknown to the age in
which that version was last put forth by authority.”
It is not to be supposed that any of these translations were published
with the expectation of securing so large a measure of favour as to
supersede the current version. Their primary purpose was to aid the
private study of the Bible; but they have been of great service also in
keeping the general question of revision before the notice of thoughtful
persons, and they have each in their measure contributed to a more exact
knowledge of the Scriptures.
The failure of the earlier of these attempts at revision arose in part
from the imperfect state of the texts upon which they were based. This
soon became obvious, and Biblical scholars saw that for some time to come
their labours must be spent rather in laying the foundation for a future
revision than in attempting it themselves, and this in three distinct
departments. The first of these was the collection, as described in the
last lecture, of the material supplied by ancient manuscripts, and by
early versions and quotations. In this department a long succession of
faithful men have laboured, amongst whom may be mentioned Brian Walton,
who in 1657 published his famous Polyglot Bible in six folio volumes,
giving in addition to the original Hebrew and Greek, the Samaritan
Pentateuch, the Septuagint, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Æthiopic, and Persian
versions; Dr. John Mill, whose New Testament was published in 1770, and of
whom it has been justly said that “his services to Bible criticism surpass
in extent and value those rendered by any other except one or two men yet
living;”[101] Dr. Richard Bentley, who, having himself collated the
Alexandrine and other ancient MSS., and by various agencies amassed a
large store of critical material, published in 1720 his “Proposals for
Printing” revised texts both of the Greek New Testament and the Latin
Vulgate; Dr. Kennicott, who in 1760 aroused public attention to the
importance of collating all Hebrew MSS. made before the invention of
printing, and who personally, or through the aid of others, collated more
than six hundred Hebrew MSS., and sixteen MSS. of the Samaritan
Pentateuch; John Bernard de Rossi, professor of Oriental languages in the
University of Parma, who in 1784-8 published the results of the collation
of seven hundred and thirty-one MSS., and of three hundred editions of the
Hebrew Scriptures; and, to come to more recent times, Dr. Constantine
Tischendorf, Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, and Dr. Frederick Henry
Scrivener, whose names are to be held in the highest honour, as of men who
have rendered invaluable service to their own and future generations in
the exhausting and self-denying work of the collation of Biblical MSS.,
and through whose care and accuracy the means of obtaining an exact
knowledge of a large number of most precious documents have been placed
within easy reach of all.
The second department of labour is the application of the material thus
collected to the correction of the text. Here again a vast amount of
patient work has been done, and out of the successive labours of a long
series of critics much valuable experience has been gained and the best
methods gradually learnt. Amongst those who have thus laboured in the
criticism of the text of the New Testament may be mentioned the names of
Bengel, Wettstein, Griesbach, Scholz, Tischendorf, Lachmann, Alford,
Tregelles, Westcott, and Hort; and of that of the Old Testament, Buxtorf,
Leusden, Van der Hooght, Michaelis, Houbigant, Kennicott, and Jahn.
The third department is that which is concerned with the investigation of
the meaning of the sacred writers; and how much has been done in this will
be manifest to any one who makes the attempt to reckon up the long series
of commentaries, English and Continental, on the books of the Holy
Scriptures, published since the Revision of 1611, commencing with the
Annotations of the eminent Nonconformist, Henry Ainsworth, on the
Pentateuch, Psalms, and Song of Solomon, 1627, down to the recent
commentaries on Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, by Dr.
J. B. Lightfoot, the present Bishop of Durham. The attempt to make this
enumeration will deepen the desire that the light which has been shed upon
the Bible by this long succession of its learned and earnest students
should now be employed for the guidance and help of the ordinary readers
of its pages.
To such desire emphatic expression has been given in various ways through
full two generations, with an ever increasing intensity, and by
representative men amongst all Christian communities.
So early in the present century as the year 1809, Dr. John Pye Smith,
President of the Congregational College at Homerton, thus wrote: “That
such blemishes should disfigure that translation of the best and most
important of volumes, which has been and still is more read by thousands
of the pious than any other version, ancient or modern; that they should
be acknowledged by all competent judges to exist; that they should have
been so long and often complained of; and yet that there has been no great
public act, from high and unimpeachable authority, for removing them, we
are constrained to view as a disgrace to our national literature. We do
not wish to see our common version, now become venerable by age and
prescription, superseded by another entirely _new_; every desirable
purpose would be satisfactorily attained by a _faithful_ and
_well-conducted revision_.”[102]
In the following year (1810) Dr. Herbert Marsh, then Margaret Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge, and subsequently Bishop of Peterborough, in the
first edition of his _Lectures_ wrote: “It is probable that our authorised
version is as faithful a representation of the original Scriptures as
_could_ have been formed at _that period_. But when we consider the
immense accession that has _since_ been made, both to our critical and
philological apparatus;” “when we consider that the most important sources
of intelligence for the _interpretation_ of the original Scriptures were
_likewise_ opened after that period, we cannot possibly pretend that our
authorised version does not require _amendment_.”[103]
In 1816 Thomas Wemyss, a learned layman, who had devoted himself to
Biblical studies, called attention, under the title of _Biblical
Gleanings_, to a number of passages which were generally allowed to be
mistranslated; and in 1819 Sir James Bland Burges published _Reasons in
favour of a New Translation of the Scriptures_.
During a few years after this, the subject remained in abeyance, but in
1832 there was published, at Cambridge, a calm and scholarly pamphlet,
entitled _Hints on an Improved Translation of the New Testament_, by the
Rev. James Scholefield, A.M., Regius Professor of Greek in the University
of Cambridge. A second edition was issued in 1836, and a third, with an
appendix, in 1849.
Through these and other publications a widely-spread conviction was
produced that the work ought at length to be attempted, and in the years
1855-57 the question was in a very emphatic form brought under public
notice. In the _Edinburgh Review_ of October, 1855, in a notice of a
certain Paragraph Bible then recently published, there appeared the
following words: “Surely it is high time for a further revision. It is
now almost 250 years since the last was made. During that long period
neither the researches of the clergy nor the intelligence of the laity
have remained stationary. We have become desirous of knowing more, and
they have acquired more to teach us. Vast stores of Biblical information
have been accumulating since the days of James I., by which, not merely
the rendering of the Common Version, but the purity of the Sacred Text
itself, might be improved. And it is essential to the interests of
religion that that information should be fully, freely, and in an
authoritative form, disseminated abroad by a careful correction of our
received version of the Sacred Scriptures.”
In the following year, 1856, the Rev. William Selwyn, Canon of Ely, and
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, sent forth his _Notes on
the proposed Amendment of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures_,
in which he states: “I do not hesitate to avow my firm persuasion that
there are at least one thousand passages of the English Bible that might
be amended without any change in the general texture and justly reverenced
language of the version.”
In July of the same year an address to the Crown was moved in the House of
Commons by Mr. Heywood, member for North Lancashire, praying that Her
Majesty would appoint a Royal Commission of learned men to consider of
such amendments of the authorized version of the Bible as had been already
proposed, and to receive suggestions from all persons who might be willing
to offer them, and to report the amendments which they might be prepared
to recommend.
In the January of the following year a resolution in support of revision
was proposed at the general meeting of the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, by the Rev. G. F. Biber, LL.D., who subsequently published the
substance of his speech in support of this resolution, under the title, _A
Plea for an Edition of the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture with
explanatory and emendatory marginal readings_. Pamphlets also were
published the same year by Dr. Beard and by Dr. Henry Burgess; but, what
it is more important to note, in that year there was published the first
of a series of works which were intended to show by example the kind of
work which the wiser advocates of revision desired to see undertaken. This
was _The Gospel according to John, after the Authorized Version, newly
compared with the original Greek, and revised by five clergymen--John
Barrow, D.D.; George Moberly, D.C.L.; Henry Alford, B.D.; William G.
Humphry, B.D.; Charles J. Ellicott, M.A._ In that same year also Dr.
Trench, then Dean of Westminster (now Archbishop of Dublin), published his
work _On the Authorized Version of the New Testament_; and in 1863 Dr.
Plumptre, in the _Dictionary of the Bible_, reiterated the statement, “The
work ought not to be delayed much longer.”
In the spring of 1870 the desirableness of a fresh revision of the English
Bible was advocated--by Dr. J. B. Lightfoot in a paper read before a
meeting of clergy; by the writer of these lectures in a paper read before
the annual meeting of the Congregational Union of England and Wales; by
the _British Quarterly Review_ in its January number; and, finally, by the
_Quarterly Review_ in its April number.
A weighty sentence from the last-mentioned writer will be a fitting
conclusion to the present lecture. “It is positive unfaithfulness on the
part of those who have ability and opportunity to decline the task. The
Word of God, just because it is God’s Word, ought to be presented to every
reader in a state as pure and perfect as human learning, skill, and taste
can make it. The higher our veneration for it the more anxious ought we to
be to free it from every blemish, however small and unimportant. But
nothing in truth can be unimportant which dims the light of Divine
Revelation.”
LECTURE IX.
_THE REVISION OF 1881._
To the general consensus of opinion described in the last lecture
practical expression was first given by the action of the Convocation of
Canterbury, in the early part of 1870.
On February 10, 1870, a resolution was moved in the Upper House of
Convocation by Dr. Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, and seconded by Dr.
Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, “That a Committee of both
Houses be appointed, with power to confer with any committee that may be
appointed by the Convocation of the Northern Province, to report upon the
desirableness of a revision of the Authorized Version of the New
Testament, whether by marginal notes or otherwise, in all those passages
where plain and clear errors, whether in the Greek Text originally adopted
by the translators, or in the translation made from the same, shall, on
due investigation, be found to exist.” On the motion of Dr. Ollivant,
Bishop of Llandaff, seconded by Dr. Thirlwall, Bishop of St. Davids, it
was agreed to enlarge this resolution so as to include the Old Testament
also, and the resolution as so amended was ultimately adopted.
This resolution was communicated to the Lower House on the following day
(February 11), where it was accepted without a division.
The joint Committee appointed in accordance with this resolution consisted
of seven Bishops and fourteen Members of the Lower House.[104] This
Committee met on March 24th, and agreed to the following report:[105]
I. “That it is desirable that a Revision of the Authorized Version of
the Holy Scriptures be undertaken.”
II. “That the Revision be so conducted as to comprise both Marginal
renderings, and such emendations as it may be found necessary to
insert in the text of the Authorized Version.”
III. “That in the above Resolutions we do not contemplate any new
translation of the Bible, or any alteration of the language except
where, in the judgment of the most competent Scholars, such change is
necessary.”
IV. “That in such necessary changes, the style of the language
employed in the existing Version be closely followed.”
V. “That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of
its own Members to undertake the work of Revision, who shall be at
liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to
whatever nation or religious body they may belong.”
This Report was presented to the Upper House on May 3rd, where its
adoption was moved by Bishop Wilberforce, and seconded by Bishop
Thirlwall, and carried unanimously.
Bishop Wilberforce then moved, and Bishop Thirlwall seconded, “That a
Committee be now appointed to consider and Report to Convocation a scheme
of revision on the principles laid down in the Report now adopted, and
that the Bishops of Winchester, St. Davids, Llandaff, Gloucester and
Bristol, Salisbury, Ely, Lincoln, and Bath and Wells, be members of the
Committee. That the Committee be empowered to invite the co-operation of
those whom they may judge fit from their Biblical Scholarship to aid them
in their work.” This also was carried unanimously.
In the Lower House the above given Report of the joint Committee was
presented on May 5th, when its adoption was moved by Canon Selwyn,[106]
and seconded by Archdeacon Allen. In the discussion which followed two
attempts were made to overthrow the principle embodied in the fifth
resolution, and to confine the revision to Scholars in communion with the
Church of England. Both of these were unsuccessful, and the adoption of
the Report was carried, with two dissentients only. On the following day,
May 6th, the House completed its action by agreeing to the suggestion of
the Upper House, that on this occasion it should waive its privilege of
appointing on joint Committees twice as many as were appointed by the
Upper House, and should appoint eight Members only to co-operate with the
eight Bishops mentioned above. The Members selected were Dr. Bickersteth
the Prolocutor, Dean Alford, Dean Stanley, Canon Blakesley, Canon Selwyn,
Archdeacon Rose, Dr. Jebb, and Dr. Kay.
The first meeting of this second joint Committee was held on May 25th. It
was then agreed that the Committee should separate into two Companies--one
for the revision of the Old Testament, and one for that of the New. Of the
Members of Committee belonging to the Upper House five were assigned to
the former Company and three to the latter. The Members belonging to the
Lower House were divided equally between the two Companies. At the same
meeting the Committee selected the Scholars who should be invited to join
the Companies, and also decided upon the general rules that should guide
their procedure. These were:
1. “To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the
Authorized Version consistently with faithfulness.”
2. “To limit as far as possible the expression of such alterations to
the language of the Authorized and earlier English versions.”
3. “Each Company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once
provisionally, the second time finally, and on principles of voting as
hereinafter is provided.”
4. “That the Text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is
decidedly preponderating; and that when the Text so adopted differs
from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration
be indicated in the margin.”
5. “To make or retain no change in the Text on the second and final
revision by each Company, except _two-thirds_ of those present approve
of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple
majorities.”
6. “In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to
discussion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next Meeting,
whensoever the same shall be required by one-third of those present at
the Meeting, such intended vote to be announced in the notice for the
next Meeting.”
7. “To revise the headings of chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics,
and punctuation.”
8. “To refer on the part of each Company, when considered desirable,
to Divines, Scholars, and Literary Men, whether at home or abroad, for
their opinions.”
To these it was added, that the work of each Company be communicated to
the other as it is completed, in order that there may be as little
deviation from uniformity in language as possible.
Of the Scholars invited to join the Companies four[107] declined for
various reasons, and one[108] was prevented by illness from taking part in
the work. The two Companies when formed consisted of the following
Members.
THE OLD TESTAMENT COMPANY.
Dr. W. L. Alexander, Professor of Theology in the Congregational
Theological Hall, Edinburgh.
Dr. E. H. Browne, Bishop of Ely.[109]
Mr. O. T. Chenery, Lord Almoner’s Professor of Arabic, Oxford.
Dr. A. B. Davidson, Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College,
Edinburgh.
Dr. Benjamin Davies, Professor of Hebrew, Baptist College, Regent’s
Park.
Dr. P. Fairbairn, Principal of Free Church College, Glasgow.
Dr. F. Field.
Dr. Ginsburg.
Dr. F. W. Gotch, Principal of the Baptist College, Bristol.
Rev. B. Harrison, Archdeacon of Maidstone.
Dr. A. C. Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Dr. J. Jebb, Canon of Hereford.
Dr. W. Kay, late Principal of Bishop’s College, Calcutta.
Dr. Stanley Leathes, Professor of Hebrew, King’s College, London.
Rev. J. McGill, Professor of Oriental Languages, St. Andrews.
Dr. A. Ollivant, Bishop of Llandaff.
Dr. R Payne Smith, Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford.[110]
Dr. J. J. S. Perowne, Professor of Hebrew, St. Davids College,
Lampeter.[111]
Rev. E. H. Plumptre,[112] Professor of New Testament Exegesis, King’s
College, London.
Dr. H. J. Rose, Archdeacon of Bedford.
Dr. W. Selwyn, Canon of Ely, and Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity,
Cambridge.
Dr. Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St. Davids.
Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln.
Mr. W. A. Wright, Librarian[113] of Trinity College, Cambridge.
THE NEW TESTAMENT COMPANY.
Dr. H. Alford, Dean of Canterbury.
Dr. J. Angus, Principal of the Baptist College, Regent’s Park.
Dr. E. H. Bickersteth, Prolocutor of the Lower House of
Convocation.[114]
Dr. J. W. Blakesley, Canon of Canterbury.[115]
Dr. J. Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis to the
United Presbyterian Church, Scotland.
Dr. C. J. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.
Rev. F. J. A. Hort.[116]
Rev. W. G. Humphry, Prebendary of St. Paul’s.
Dr. B. H. Kennedy, Canon of Ely, and Regius Professor of Greek,
Cambridge.
Dr. W. Lee, Archdeacon of Dublin.
Dr. J. B. Lightfoot.[117]
Dr. W. Milligan, Professor of Divinity, Aberdeen.
Dr. G. Moberly, Bishop of Salisbury.
Rev. W. F. Moulton, Professor of Classics, Wesleyan College,
Richmond.[118]
Rev. Samuel Newth, Professor of Classics, New College, London.[119]
Dr. A. Roberts.[120]
Dr. R. Scott, Master of Balliol College, Oxford.[121]
Rev. F. H. Scrivener.[122]
Dr. G. Vance Smith.[123]
Dr. A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster.
Dr. R. C. Trench, Archbishop of Dublin.
Dr. C. J. Vaughan, Master of the Temple.[124]
Dr. B. F. Westcott, Canon of Peterborough.[125]
Dr. S. Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester.
To these lists some changes have, from various causes, been made in the
course of the last ten years, both in the way of addition, and in the way
of removal.
* * * * *
To the Old Testament Company thirteen members have been added--
Mr. R. N. Bensley, Hebrew Lecturer, Caius College, Cambridge.
Rev. J. Birrill, Professor of Oriental Languages, St Andrews,
Scotland.
Dr. F. Chance.
Rev. T. K. Cheyne, Hebrew Lecturer, Balliol College, Oxford.
Dr. G. Douglas, Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College, Glasgow.
Mr. S. R Driver, Tutor of New College, Oxford.
Rev. C. J. Elliott.
Rev. J. D. Geden, Professor of Hebrew, Wesleyan College, Didsbury.
Rev. J. R. Lumby, Fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge.[126]
Rev. A. H. Sayce, Tutor of Queen’s College, Oxford.
Rev. W. Robertson Smith, Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College,
Aberdeen.
Dr. D. H. Weir, Professor of Oriental Languages, Glasgow.
Dr. W. Wright, Professor of Arabic, Cambridge.
During the same period it has lost ten members, seven by death: Professor
Davies, Professor Fairbairn, Professor McGill, Archdeacon Rose, Canon
Selwyn, Bishop Thirlwall, Professor Weir; and three by resignation--Canon
Jebb, Professor Plumptre, and Bishop Wordsworth.
* * * * *
The New Testament Company has undergone less change. Four members have
been added--
Dr. David Brown, Professor of Divinity, Free Church College, Aberdeen.
Dr. C. Merivale, Dean of Ely.
Rev. Edwin Palmer, Professor of Latin, Oxford.[127]
Dr. Charles Wordsworth, Bishop of St. Andrews.
Four also have been removed--Dean Alford, Dr. Eadie, and Bishop
Wilberforce by death, Dean Merivale by resignation.
* * * * *
The first chairman of the Old Testament Company was Bishop Thirlwall. Upon
his resignation of the office in 1871 Dr. Harold Browne, then Bishop of
Ely, now Bishop of Winchester, was appointed to succeed him, and has
continued to hold the office until now. Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol, has from the first presided over the New
Testament Company.
The Old Testament Company appointed one of their own number, Mr. Aldis
Wright, to act as their secretary, taking the minutes of their
proceedings, and conducting all needful correspondence. The New Testament
Company deemed it better to assign this office to one who was not himself
burthened with the responsibilities of the revision, and they were happily
able to secure the efficient services of the Rev. John Troutbeck, M.A.,
one of the Minor Canons of Westminster Abbey.
It will be seen that of the sixty-five English scholars who have taken
part in this work forty-one have been members of the Church of England,
and twenty-four members of other churches. Of the latter number two
represent the Episcopal Church of Ireland, one the Episcopal Church of
Scotland, four the Baptists, three the Congregationalists, five the Free
Church of Scotland, five the Established Church of Scotland, one the
United Presbyterians, one the Unitarians, and two the Wesleyan Methodists.
It is on many grounds a matter for thankfulness that they who took the
initiative in the formation of the two Companies were able to secure so
wide a representation of the various religious communities of our country,
and men belonging to different schools of religious thought. For while no
one can reasonably suppose that in the present day any body of Scholars
would consciously allow themselves in the translation of the Scriptures to
be swayed by any theological bias, there is, as all know, such a thing as
unconscious bias; and it was greatly to be desired that no such suspicion
should be raised against this Revision as for a long time obtained in
reference to the Revision of 1611. It was also to be desired that no
ground should exist that would give an excuse for any to say that through
the bias of theological prepossessions the interpretations given by some
to important passages of Scripture were unconsciously ignored, and that,
had such interpretations been brought under the consideration of the
Revisers, they must, as honest scholars, have accepted them. Such a ground
of objection has happily been excluded by the constitution of the two
Companies. The varieties of theological opinion found amongst the Revisers
have been an efficient protection against any lapse of the kind referred
to, and it may safely be affirmed that no interpretation of any important
doctrinal passage for which any respectable amount of authority could be
claimed has failed to come under notice, or to receive a careful
examination.
The advantage resulting from this varied representation in the membership
of the two Companies has been still further extended by the arrangements
which have secured the co-operation of a considerable number of American
Scholars. Shortly after the formation of the two Companies steps were
taken for enlisting such co-operation; and after some correspondence with
representative men in America, the Rev. Dr. Philip Schaff, of New York,
was requested to act on behalf of the English Companies in selecting and
inviting American Scholars. In October, 1871, it was reported to the New
Testament Company that Dr. Schaff had verbally informed the secretary that
the American Revisers were prepared to enter upon their work. Various
causes of delay, however, intervened, and it was not until July 17th,
1872, that the communication was made that the American Companies were
duly constituted. These Companies held their first meeting on the 4th of
October in that year. The following is the list of their Members.
THE OLD TESTAMENT COMPANY.
Professor T. J. Conant, Baptist, Brooklyn, New York.
Professor G. E. Day, Congregationalist, New Haven, Conn.
Professor J. De Witt, Reformed Church, New Brunswick, N.J.
Professor W. H. Green, Presbyterian, Princeton, N.J.
Professor G. E. Hare, Episcopalian, Philadelphia, Pa.
Professor C. P. Krauth, Lutheran, Philadelphia, Pa.
Professor Joseph Packard, Episcopalian, Fairfax, Va.
Professor C. E. Stowe, Congregationalist, Cambridge, Mass.
Professor J. Strong, Methodist, Madison, N.J.
Professor C. V. Van Dyke,[128] Beirût, Syria.
Professor T. Lewis, Reformed Church, Schenectady, N.J.
In all eleven members.
THE NEW TESTAMENT COMPANY.
Professor Ezra Abbot, Unitarian, Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. G. R. Crooks, Methodist, New York.
Professor H. B. Hackett, Baptist, Rochester, N.Y.
Professor J. Hadley, Congregationalist, New Haven, Conn.
Professor C. Hodge, Presbyterian, Princeton, N.J.
Professor A. C. Kendrick, Baptist, Rochester, N.Y.
Dr. Alfred Lee, Bishop of Delaware.
Professor M. B. Riddle, Reformed Church, Hartford, Conn.
Professor Philip Schaff, Presbyterian, New York.
Professor C. Short, Episcopalian, New York.
Professor H. B. Smith, Presbyterian, New York.
Professor J. H. Thayer, Congregationalist, Andover, Mass.
Professor W. F. Warren, Methodist, Boston, Mass.
Dr. E. A. Washburn, Episcopalian, New York.
Dr. T. D. Woolsey, Congregationalist, New Haven, Conn.
In all fifteen members.
Four Members have since been added to the Old Testament Company; namely:
Professor C. A. Aiken, Presbyterian, Princeton, N.J.
Dr. T. W. Chambers, Reformed Church, New York.
Professor C. M. Mead, Congregationalist, Andover, Mass.
Professor H. Osgood, Baptist, Rochester, N.Y.
One Member, Professor T. Lewis, has been removed by death.
Four Members have been added to the New Testament Company:
Dr. J. K. Burr, Methodist, Trenton, N.Y.
Dr. T. Chase, Baptist, President of Haverford College, Pa.
Dr. H. Crosby, Baptist, Chancellor of New York University.
Professor Timothy Dwight, Congregationalist, New Haven, Conn.
Four also have been removed by death, Dr. Hackett, Dr. Hadley, Dr. C.
Hodge, Dr. H. B. Smith; and two by resignation, Dr. Crooks and Dr. Warren.
* * * * *
It hence results that altogether ninety-nine Scholars have, to a greater
or less extent, taken part in the work of this revision, forty-nine of
whom have been members of the Episcopalian Churches of England, Scotland,
Ireland, and America, and fifty members of other Christian Churches. This
fact is in itself full of interest and significance. Upon no previous
revision have so many Scholars been engaged. In no previous revision has
the co-operation of those who were engaged upon it been so equally
diffused over all the parts of the work. In no previous revision have
those who took the lead in originating it, and carrying it forward, shown
so large a measure of Christian confidence in Scholars who were outside of
their own communion. In no previous revision have such effective
precautions been created by the very composition of the body of Revisers,
against accidental oversight, or against any lurking bias that might arise
from natural tendencies or from ecclesiastical prepossessions. On these
accounts alone, if on no other, this revision may be fairly said to
possess peculiar claims upon the confidence of all thoughtful and devout
readers of the Bible.
The New Testament Company assembled for the first time on Wednesday, June
22nd, 1870. They met in the Chapel of Henry VII., and there united in the
celebration of the Lord’s Supper. After this act of worship and holy
communion they formally entered upon the task assigned to them. The Old
Testament Company held their first meeting on June 30th.
By the kindness of the Dean of Westminster, the New Testament Company was
permitted to hold its meetings in the Jerusalem Chamber. This room,
originally the parlour of the Abbot’s Palace, is associated with many
interesting events of English history. It was to this spot that Henry IV.
was conveyed when seized with his last illness; and here, on March 20th,
1413, he died. It was here, in the days of the Long Parliament, that the
celebrated Assembly of Divines, driven by the cold from Henry VII.’s
Chapel, held its sixty-sixth session, on Monday, October 2nd, 1643; and
here thenceforward it continued to meet until its closing session (the
1163rd), on February 22nd, 1649. Here were prepared the famed Westminster
Confession of Faith, and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms so highly
prized by the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and during many
generations by the Independents of England. Here also, just fifty years
later, assembled the memorable Commission appointed by William III., at
the suggestion of the Dean of Canterbury (Dr. Tillotson), to devise a
basis for a scheme of comprehension in a revision of the Prayer Book. In
this room the New Testament Company have held
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