BIBLE, REVISION OF THE ENGLISH VERSION OF. 



97 



unfailing harmony and good feeling. Secta- 

 rian differences were merged in the common 

 sympathies of Christian scholarship, and in a 

 profound conviction of the high ends and wide 

 and enduring interests that the revision was to 

 subserve. If any thought of special denomina- 

 tional interests arose in any mind, it rarely or 

 never found utterance. 



To settle the proper relations of the English 

 and American bodies was a matter of considera- 

 ble delicacy. The English companies, as having 

 originated the enterprise, and having through- 

 out led the way ia the revision, as well, per- 

 haps, as on general grounds of historical prior- 

 ity, would naturally claim the right of ultimate 

 decision in disputed cases. On the other hand, 

 so large and respectable a company of Ameri- 

 can scholars could scarcely be expected to de- 

 vote so much and long-continued labor to the 

 work in the character of mere unauthoritative 

 advisers. Yet their admission to an entire 

 equality in voting was also hindered by the 

 arrangements the British companies had made 

 with the heads of the University presses, who, 

 in return for the right of exclusive printing, 

 undertook to meet all the expenses of the mem- 

 bers; and the difficulty was heightened by 

 the wide local separation of the two revising 

 bodies. The matter was, on the whole, sat- 

 isfactorily adjusted. The English companies 

 were to give the most careful consideration 

 to the American suggestions ; points of differ- 

 ence were to be subjects of mutual discussion ; 

 and any differences, finally remaining, which the 

 American companies deemed of sufficient im- 

 portance, were to be noted in appendixes, af- 

 fixed to the Old and New Testaments respect- 

 ively. In accordance with this agreement, snch 

 appendixes have been subjoined, embracing 

 some of the chief (though, of course, by no 

 means all) points of American dissent. In 

 probably a large majority of the changes made, 

 the British and American bodies were substan- 

 tially unanimous. A large part of them would 

 have been made by either body without hesi- 

 tation. In very many cases the American sug- 

 gestions were in whole, or with modifications, 

 incorporated into the work, and among these 

 not a few of decided importance. The pub- 

 lished work, therefore, gives no certain clew to 

 the relative amount of English and American 

 labor that contributed to its production. The 

 products of English Episcopal and dissenting 

 scholarship, and of the more equal and less 

 sharply distinguished learning of the Ameri- 

 can church, repose in indistinguishable har- 

 mony in the new revision, and make their 

 united appeal to English Christendom. 



The revision appears in England under the 

 auspices of the University presses, and is pro- 

 tected by copyright. Efforts were made to 

 effect a like arrangement with some publish- 

 ing house in this country, for which course 

 a cogent argument was found in the purity of 

 text guaranteed by this restricted publication. 

 Yet the legality of such restriction here seemed 



VOL. XXV. 1 A 



doubtful, and the American committee were 

 unwilling to take any steps that would either 

 prevent the widest diffusion of the work, or 

 connect their labors with either the fact or the 

 suspicion of seeking any pecuniary emolument. 

 It was decided not to trammel the publication 

 of the work in this country by any attempted 

 copyright ; but it seemed only just to the Eng- 

 lish University presses, whose outlay in the en- 

 terprise had been very large, that the American 

 committee should for the time being set their 

 seal upon the editions issued by these presses, 

 as those for whose accuracy they held them- 

 selves responsible. 



The revision of the New Testament was fin- 

 ished in the autumn of 1880, and the eagerness 

 with which it was sought made its sale a phe- 

 nomenon in English literary history. The Old 

 Testament appeared in 1884. The Old-Testa- 

 ment revisers had thus the advantage, in their 

 later labors, of the criticisms upon the New 

 Testament, which, both in England and m 

 this country, were made very freely, and were 

 of the most various character, generally can- 

 did, sometimes severe, and, on the whole, fair- 

 ly favorable. 



There have been two or three marked ex- 

 ceptions, as in the violent onslaught of Dean 

 Burgon and the somewhat magisterial judg- 

 ment of Prof. Blackie, who designated the re- 

 vised New Testament as " a translation largely 

 disfigured by want of sense and want of taste," 

 which, while it "has done good service by 

 bringing prominently before the public some 

 half dozen a dozen it may be of passages 

 either liable to be misunderstood, or whose 

 force was weakened or obscured in the au- 

 thorized version," yet falls in great part "into 

 the category of unreasonable curiousness and 

 unprofitable minuteness." Perhaps the gen- 

 eral sentiment has been that the work, while, 

 as a whole, unquestionably scholarly and con- 

 servative, adhering in the main as closely as 

 could be expected to the principles prescribed, 

 has sometimes departed unnecessarily from 

 the language of the common version, and sac- 

 rificed occasionally its freer movement and 

 rhythmical flow to an unneeded and half-pe- 

 dantic adherence to the idioms of the original. 

 It was easy to lay down in advance the gen- 

 eral principles that should guide the revision ; 

 the difficulty of uniformly following them out 

 in practice could be learned only from the 

 actual trial. The arguments for or against a 

 given change will range through every con- 

 ceivable degree of strength or weakness. A 

 change strongly commended in a particular 

 passage, if carried out consistently, may lead 

 to others that occasion its ultimate rejection. 

 A change rejected in a given place will be 

 finally admitted under the stress of passages 

 where its admission is imperative. The pro- 

 cess of revision thus becomes at almost every 

 step a balancing of conflicting considerations ; 

 and this all the more as the work is a revision 

 and not a new translation ; as it is a revision 



