46 



E. J. SEWELL, ESQ., ON THE 



many acknowledged errors and defects in the Authorized 

 Version ; it has been in the hands of Englishmen for thirty 

 years, but it is very far from taking the place of the Authorized 

 Version ; on the contrary, the number of copies of the Eevised 

 Version sold is said to be rather decreasing than increasing and 

 the Version itself has not anywhere come into general use. 

 There is therefore little ground for supposing that a new version 

 which should still further depart from the language of the 

 Authorized Version could hope for general acceptance. And 

 yet many scholars and many ordinary readers of the Bible have 

 felt that the Elizabethan English of the Authorized Version, 

 dignified and beautiful as it is, is a great obstacle to the full 

 and easy comprehension of its contents, more especially in 

 primary and even secondary schools and among labourers and 

 artizans and other such persons whose scanty leisure gives them 

 little time or inclination for learning the meaning of unfamiliar 

 phraseology. 



It is quite probable that the antiquated language of the 

 Bible is a hindrance to the understanding of its meaning in the 

 case of classes more extensive than those just specified. 



This hindrance has been so widely realized, that many 

 translations, more especially of the New Testament, in " modern 

 English " have been put forward. Where this has been done 

 by competent scholars, the result has been of such great interest 

 and value that it compels us to face the question whether, in 

 the case of the English Version (and of other versions, the 

 conditions of which are similar), the true principle is that 

 adopted by these scholars, or that laid down for the revisers 

 who produced the Eevised Version, viz., " to limit, as far as 

 possible, the expression of alterations of the text of the 

 Authorized Version to the language of the Authorized and 

 earlier English Versions." In other words, should the language 

 of the Authorized Version be scrupulously preserved and 

 imitated in alterations (where alterations are necessary) or 

 should it be freely altered by the introduction of modern 

 phraseology wherever the old language is not at once and easily 

 intelligible to a modern reader who has no acquaintance (or 

 very little) with the English of three or four hundred years 

 ago ? 



The problem has been stated as it bears on the English 

 Version, because that is the version most familiar to an English 

 audience. But it lias equally to be solved in dealing with 

 Luther's version in German, and it arises, in a modified degree, 

 in several European languages where a translation made 



