BEING THE ARRANGED IN Desieried 1-7 UUKi'. THE CRUCIFIXION LIGmT ®F TME We'R-lLlj' EEHOLC I STAN]: L' w u K CONTRASTED EDITIONS. The New Testament OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST: TRANSLATED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL GREEK, AND WITH THE FORMER TRANSLATIONS DILIGENTLY COMPARED AND REVISED. CONTAINING THE OLD (KING JAMES) VERSION AND THE NEW REVISED VERSION, IN PARALLEL COLUMNS, FOR CONVENIENCE IN REFERENCE AND COMPARISON. WITH A CONCISE HISTORY OF REVISION. — BY— KEY. MOSELET H. WILLIAMS, EDITOR OF THE "SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORLX)," ETC. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND OF THE TRANSMISSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES, AND OF THE MANY TRANSLA- TIONS AND REVISIONS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE; ALSO, A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THIS LAST GREAT REVISION BY THE MOST EMINENT BIB- LICAL SCHOLARS OF THE WORLD. EMBELISHED WITH WO FINE ENGEAVINSS ON STEEL. Copyrifrht, i38i PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL PUBLISHING CO. PHILADELPHIA, PA., CHICAGO, ILL., ST. LOUIS MO., AND ATLANTA, GA. T'' ( PEEFACE. TiiE English Version of tlie New Testament liere presented to the reader is a Revision of the Translation published in the year of Our Lord 1611, and commonly known by the name of the Authorised Version. That Translation wns tlie work of many hands and of several genera- tions. The foundation was laid by AVilliam Tyndale. His translation of the New Testament was the true primary Version. The Versions that followed were either substantially reproductions of Tyndale's trans- lation in its final shape, or revisions of Versions that had been them- selves almost entirely based on it. Three successive stages may be rec- ognised in this continuous work of authoritative revision : first, the pub- lication of the Great Bible of 1539-41 in the reign of Henry VIII; next, the publication of the Bishops' Bible of 1568 and 1572 in the reign of Elizabeth ; and lastly, the publication of the King's Bible of 1611 in the reign of James I. Besides these, the Genevan Version of 1560, itself founded on Tyndale's translation, must here be named ; which, though not put forth by authority, was widely circulated in this country, and largely used by King James' Translators. Thus the form in which the English New Testament has now been read for 270 years was the re- sult of various revisions made between 1525 and 1611 ; and the present Revision is an attempt, after a long interval, to follow the example set by a succession of honoured predecessors. I. Of the many points of interest connected with the Translation of 1611, two require special notice; first, the Greek Text which it appears to have represented ; and secondly, the character of the Translation itself. PREFA CE. 1. With regard to the Greek Text, it would appear that, if to some extent the Transktors exercised an independent judgement, it was mainly in choosing amongst readings contained in the principal editions of the Greek Text that had apjieared in the sixteenth century. Wherever they seem to have followed a reading which is not found in any of those editions, their rendering may probably be traced to the Latin Vulgate. Their chief guides appear to have been the later editions of Stephanus and of Beza, and also, to a certain extent, the Complutensian Polyglott. All these "were founded for the most i^art on manuscripts of late date, few in number, and used with little critical skill. But in those days it could hardly have been otherwise. Nearly all the more ancient of the document- ary authorities have become known only within the last two centuries; somtj of the most important of them, indeed, within the last few years. Their publication has called forth not only improved editions of the Greek Text, but a succession of instructive discussions on the variations which have been brought to light, and on the best modes of distinguishing original readings from changes introduced in the course of transcription. While therefore it has long been the opinion of all scholars that the com- monly received text needed thorough revision, it is but recently that materials have been acquired for executing such a work with even ap- proximate completeness. 2. The character of the Translation itself will be best estimated by considering the leading rules under which it was made, and the extent to which these rules appear to have been observed. The primary and fundamental rule was expressed in the following terms : — ' 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.' There Avas, however, this subsequent provision :— * These translations to be used, when they agree better with the text than the Bishops' Bible : Tindale's, Matthew's, Coverdale's, Whitchurch's, Geneva.' The first of these rules, which was substantially the same as that laid down at the revision of the Great Bible in the reign of Eliza- beth, was strictly observed. The other rule was but partially follov^ed. The Translators made much use of the Genevan Version. They do not however appear to have frequently returned to the renderings of the other Versions named in the rule, where those Versions differed from the Bishops' Bible. On the other hand, their work shews evident traces PREFACE. vii of the influence of a Version not specified in tlie rules, tlie Rhemish, made from tlie Latin Vulgate, but by scliolars conversant with the Greek Original. Another rule, on which it is stated that those in authority laid o-reat stress, related to the rendering of words that admitted of different in- terpretations. It was as follows : — ' Wlien a word hath divers significa- tions, 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.' With this rule was associated the following, on which equal stress appears to have been laid: — 'Tiieold ecclesias- tical words to be ke[)t, viz. the word Church not to be translated Congre- gation, <&:c.' This latter rule was for the most part carefully observed ; but it may be doubted whether, in the case of words that admitted of different meanings, the instructions were at all closely followed. In dealing with the more difficult words of this class, the Translators appear to have paid much regard to traditional interpretations, and especially to the authority of the Vulgate ; but, as to the large residue of words which might prop- erly fall under the i-ule, they used considerable freedom. Moreover thev profess in their Preface to have studiously adopted a variety of expres- sion which would now be deemed hardly consistent with the require- ments of fiiithful translation. They seem to have been guided by the feeling that their Version would secure for the words they used a lasting place in the language ; and they express a fear lest they should ' be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great num- ber of good English words,' which, without this liberty on their part, would not have a place in the pages of the English Bible. Still it cannot , be doubted that they carried this liberty too far, and that the studied avoidance of uniformity in the rendering of the same words, even when occurring in the same context, is one of the blemishes in their work. A third leading rule was of a negative character, but was rendered necessary by the experience derived from former Versions. The words of the rule are as follows: — '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 expressed in the text.' Here again the Translators used some liberty in their application of the rule. Out of more than 760 marginal notes originally appended to the viii PREFA CE. Authorised Version of the New Testament, only a seventh part consists of explanations or literal renderings ; the great majority of the notes being devoted to the useful and indeed necessary purpose of placing before the reader alternative renderings which it was judged that the pasbage or the words would fairly admit. The notes referring to varia- tions in the Greek Text amount to about thirty-five. Of the remaining rules it may be sufficient to notice one, which was for the most part consistently followed : — ' 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.' The Trans- lators had also the libei'ty, in ' any place of special obscurity,' to consult those who might be qualified to give an opinion. Pass) ig from these fundamental rules, which should be borne in mind by any one who would rightly understand the nature and character of the Authorised Version, we must call attention to the manner in which the actual work of the translation was carried on. The New Testa*raent was assigned to two separate Companies, the one consisting of eight members, sitting at Oxford, the other consisting of seven members, sitting at West- minster. There is no reason to believe that these Companies ever sat to- gether. They communicated to each other, and likewise to the four Com- panies to which the Old Testament and the Apocrypha had been com- mitted, the results of their labours ; and perhaps afterwards reconsidered them : but the fact that the New Testament was divided between two sep- arate bodies of men involved a grave inconvenience, and was beyond all doubt the cause of many inconsistencies. These probably would have been much more serious, had it not been provided that there should be a final supervision of the whole Bible, by selected members from Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster, the three centres at which the work had been carried on. These supervisors are said by one authority to have been six in number, and by another twelve. When it is remembered that this supervision was completed in nine months, we may wonder that the incongruities which remain are not more numerous. The Companies appear to have been occupied in the actual business of revision about two years and three quarters. Such, so far as can be gathered from the rules and modes of procedure, is the character of the time-honoured Version which we have been call- ed upon to revise. We have had to study this great Version carefully PREFACE. and minutely, line by line ;' and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and, we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm. To render a work that had reached this high standard of excellence still more excellent, to increase its fidelity without destroying its charm, was the task committed to us. Of that task, and of the conditions under which we have attempted its fulfilment, it will now be necessary for us to speak. II. The present Revision had its origin in action taken by the Convo- cation of the Province of Canterbury in February 1870, and it has been conducted throughout on the plan laid down in Resolutions of both Houses of the Province, and, more particularly, in accordance with Prin- ciples and Rules drawn up by a special Committee of Convocation in the following May. Two Companies, the one for the revision of the Author- ised Version of the Old Testament, and the other for the revision of the same Version of the New Testament, were formed in the manner speci- fied in the Resolutions, and the work was commenced on the twenty- second day of June 1870. Shortly afterwards, steps were taken, under a resolution passed by both Houses of Convocation, for inviting the co- operation of American scholars ; and eventually two Committees were formed in America, for the purpose of acting with the two English Companies, on the basis of the Principles and Rules drawn up by the Committee of Convocation. The fundamental Resolutions adopted by the Convocation of Canter- bury on the third and fifth days of May 1870 were as follows : — ' 1. That it is desirable that a revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken. * 2. 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 Authorised Version. * 3. 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 judgement of the most competent scholars such change is necessary. ' 1 That in such necessary changes, the style of the language employed in the existing Version be closely followed. PREFACE. ' 5. That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at lib- erty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to what- ever nation or religious body they may belong.' The Principles and Rules agreed to by the Committee of Convocation on the twenty-fifth day of May 1870 were as follows : — * 1. To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness. ' 2. To limit, as far as possible, the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorised 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 Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin. ' 5. To make or retain no change in the Text on the second final revis- ion by each Company, except kuo 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, whenso- ever 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 and 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.' These rules it has been our endeavour faithfulh^ and consistently to follow. One only of them we found ourselves unable to observe in all particulars. In accordance with the seventh rule, we have carefully revised the paragraphs, italics, and punctuation. But the revision of the headings of chapters and pages would have involved so much of indirect, and indeed frequently of direct interpretation, that we judged it best to omit them altogether. PREFA CE. xi Our communications with the American Committee have been of the following nature. We transmitted to them from time to time each sev- eral portion of our First Revision, and received from them in return their criticisms and su2:2;estions. These we considered with much care and attention during the time we were engaged on our Second Revision. We then sent over to them the various portions of the Second Revision as they were completed, and received further suggestions, which, like the former, were closely and carefully considered. Last of all, we forwarded to them the Revised Version in its final form ; and a list of those pas- sages in which they desire to place on record their preference of other readings and renderings will be found at the end of the volume. We gratefully acknowledge their care, vigilance, and accuracy; and we humbly pray that their labours and our own, thus happily united, may be permitted to bear a blessing to both countries, and to all English- speaking j^eople throughout the world. The whole time devoted to the work has been ten years and a half. The First Revision occupied about six years ; the Second, about two years and a half. The remaining time has been spent in the consid- eration of the su2;2;estions from America on the Second Revision, and of many details and reserved questions arising out of our own labours. As a rule, a session of four days has been held every month (with the exception of August and September) in each year from the commence- ment of the work in June 1870. The average attendance for the whole time has been sixteen each day ; the whole Company consisting at first of twenty-seven, but for the greater part of the time of twenty-four members, many of them residing at great distances from London. Of the original number four have been removed from us by death. At an early stage in our labours, we entered into an agreement with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge for the conveyance to them of our copyright in the work. This arrangement provided for the necessary expenses of the undertaking ; and procured for iho. Revised Version the advantage of being published by Bodies long connected with the publication of the Authorised Version. III. We now pass onward to give a brief account of the particulars of the present work. This we propose to do under the four'heads of Text, Translation, Language, and Marginal Notes. PEEFA CE. 1. A revision of the Greek text was the necessary foundation of our work ; but it did not fall within our province to construct a continuous and complete Greek text. In many cases the English rendering was considered to represent correctly either of two competing readings in the Greek, and then the question of the text was usually not raised, A suf- ficiently laborious task remained in deciding between the rival claims of various readings which might properly affect the translation. When these were adjusted, our deviations from the text presumed to underlie the Authorised Version had next to be indicated, in accordance with the fourth rule ; but it proved inconvenient to record them in the margin. A better mode however of giving them publicity has been found, as the University Presses have undertaken to print them in connexion with complete Greek texts of the New Testament. In regard of the readings thus approved, it may be observed that the fourth rule, by requiring that ' the text to be adopted ' should be ' that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating,' was in effect an instruction to follow^ the authority of documentary evidence without deference to any printed text of modern times, and therefore to emjiloy the best resources of criticism for estimating the value of evidence. Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek New Testament, forms a special study of much intricacy and difficulty, and even now leaves room for considerable variety of opinion among competent critics. Different schools of criticism have been represented among us, and have together contributed to the final result. In the early part of the work every various reading requiring consideration was discussed and voted on by the Company. After a time the precedents thus established enabled the process to be safely shortened ; but it was still at the option of every one to raise a full discussion on any particular reading, and the option was freely used. On the first revision, in accordance with the fifth rule, the decisions were arrived at by simple majorities. On the second revision, at which a majority of two thirds was required to retain or introduce a reading at variance with the reading presumed to un- derlie the Authorised Version, many readings previously adopted were brought again into debate, and either re-affirmed or set aside. Many places still remain in which, for the present, it would not be safe to accept one reading to the absolute exclusion of others. In these cases we have given alternative readings in the margin, wherever they seem PREFACE. xiii to be of sufficient importance or interest to deserve notice. In the in- troductory formula, the phrases ' many ancient authorities,' * some ancient authorities,' are used with some latitude to denote a greater or lesser pro- [)ortion of those authorities which have a distinctive right to be called ancient. These ancient authorities comprise not only Greek manuscripts, some of which were written in the fourth and fifth centuries, but versions of a still earlier date in different languages, and also quotations by Chris- tian writers of the second and following centuries. 2. We pass now from the Text to the Translation. The character of the Kevision was determined for us from the outset by the first rule, 'to introduce as few alterations as possible, consistently with faithfulness.' Our task was revision, not re-translation. In the application, however, of this principle to the many and intri- cate details of our work, we have found ourselves constrained by faith- fulness to introduce changes which might not at first sight appear to be included under the rule. The alterations which we have made in the Authorised Version may be roughly grouped in five principal classes. First, alterations positively required by change of reading in the Greek Text. Secondly, alterations made where the Authorised Version appeared either to be incorrect, or to have chosen the less probable of two possible renderings. Thirdly, alterations of obscure or ambiguous renderings into such as are clear and express in their import. For it has been our principle not to leave any translation, or any arrangement of words, which could adapt itself to one or other of two interpretations, but rather to express as plainly as was possible that interpretation which seemed best to deserve a place in the text, and to put the other in the margin. There remain yet two other classes of alterations which we have felt to be required by the same principle of faithfulness. These are, — Fourthly, alterations of the Authorised Version in cases where it was inconsistent with itself in the rendering of two or more passages con- fessedly alike or parallel. Fifthly, alterations rendered necessary by con- sequence, thaf is, arising .out of changes already made, though not in themselves required by the general rule of faithfulness. Both these classes of alterations call for some further explanation. The frequent inconsistencies in the Authorised Version have caused ua much embarrassment from the fact already referred to, namely, that a PREFA CE. studied /ariety of rendering, even in the same chapter and context, was a kind jf principle with our predecessors, and was defended by them on grounds that have been mentioned above. . The problem we liad to solve was to discriminate between varieties of rendering which were compatible with fidelity to the true meaning of the text, and varieties which involved inconsistency, and were suggestive of differences that had no existence in the Greek. This problem we have solved to the best of our power, and for the most part in the following way. Where there was a doubt as to the exact shade of meaning, we have looked to the context for guidance. If the meaning was fairly expressed by the word or phrase that was before us in the Authorised Version, we made no change, even whei-e rigid adherence to the rule of translat- ing, as far as possible, the same Greek word by the same English word might have prescribed some modification. There are however numerous passages in the Authorised Version in which, whether regard be had to the recurrence (as in the first three Gospels) of identical clauses and sentences, to the repetition of the same word in the same passage, or to the characteristic use of particular words by the same w^riter, the studied variety adopted by the Translators of 1611 has produced a degree of inconsistency that cannot be reconciled with the principle of faithfulness. In such cases we have not hesitated to introduce alterations, even though the sense might not seem to the general reader to be materially affected. The last class of alterations is that which we have described as rendered necessary by consequence ; that is, by reason of some foregoing alteration. The cases in which these consequential changes have been found neces- sary are numerous and of very different kinds. Sometimes the change has been made to avoid tautology ; sometimes to obviate an unpleasing alliteration or some other infelicity of sound ; sometimes, in the case of smaller words, to preserve the familiar rhythm ; sometimes for a conver- gence of reasons which, when explained, would at once be accepted, but until so explained might never be surmised even by intelligent readers. This may be made plain by an example. When a particular word is found to recur with characteristic frequency in any one of the Sacred Writers, it is obviously desirable to adopt for it some uniform rendering. Again, where, as in the case of the first three Evangelists, precisely the PREFA CE. XV same clauses or sentences are found in more than one of tlie Gospels, it is no less necessary to translate them in every place in the same way. These two principles may be illustrated by reference to a word that per- petually recurs in St. Mark's Gospel, and that may be translated either ' straightway,' ' forthwith,' or ' immediately.' Let it be supposed that the first rendering is chosen, and that the word, in accordance with the first of the above principles, is in that Gospel uniformly translated ' straight- way.' Let it be fuither supposed that one of the passages of St. Mark in which it is so translated is found, word for word, in one of the other Gospels, but that there the rendering of the Authorised Version happens to be ' forthwith ' or ' immediately.' That rendering must be changed on the second of the above principles; and yet such a change would not have been made but for this concurrence of two sound principles, and the consequent necessity of making a change on grounds extraneous to the passage itself. This is but one of many instances of consequential alterations which might at first sight appear unnecessary, but which nevertheless have been deliberately made, and are not at variance with the rule of in- troducing as few changes in the Authorised Version as faithfulness would allow. There are some other points of detail which it may be here convenient to notice. One of these, and perhaps the most important, is the ren- dering of the Greek aorist. There are numerous cases, especially in connexion with particles ordinarily expressive of present time, in which the use of the indefinite past tense in Greek and English is altogether difierent ; and in such instances we have not attempted to violate the idiom of our language by forms of expression which it could not bear. But we have often ventured to represent the Greek aorist by the English preterite, even where the reader may find some passing difficulty in such a rendering, because we have felt convinced that the true meaning of the original was obscured by the presence of the familiar auxiliary. A re- markable illustration may be found in the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, where the combination of the aorist and the perfect shews, beyond all reasonable doubt, that different relations of time were intended to be expressed. Changes of translation will also be found in comiexion with the aorist participle, arising from the fact that the usual periphrasis of thia svi PREFACE. participle in the Vulgate, which was rendered necessary by Latin idiom, has been largely reproduced in the Authorised Version by ' when ' with the past tense (as for example in the second chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel), even where the ordinary participial rendering would have been easier and more natural in English. In reference to the perfect and the imperfect tenses but little needs to be said. The correct translation of the former has been for the most part, though with some striking exceptions, maintained in the Author- ised Version : while with regard to the imperfect, clear as its meaning may be in the Greek, the power of expressing it is so limited in English, that we have been frequently compelled to leave the force of the tense to be inferred from the context. In a few instances, where faithfulness imperatively required it, and especially where, in the Greek, the signifi- cance of the imperfect tense seemed to be additionally marked by the use of the participle with the auxiliary verb, we have introduced the corre- sponding form in English. Still, in the great majority of cases we have been obliged to retain the English preterite, and to rely either on slight changes in the order of the words, or on prominence given to the accom- ])anying temporal particles, for the indication of the meaning which, in the Greek, the imperfect tense was designed to convey. On other points of grammar it may be sufficient to speak more briefly. Many changes, as might be anticipated, have been made in the case of the definite article. Here again it was necessary to consider the peculiarities of English idiom, as well sis the general tenor of each passage. Sometimes we have felt it enough to prefix the article to the first of a series of words to all of which it is prefixed in the Greek, and thus, as it were, to impart the idea of definiteness to the whole series, without running the risk of overloading the sentence. Sometimes, conversely, we have had to tolerate the presence of the definite article in our Version, when it is absent from the Greek, and perhaps not even grammatically latent ; simply because English idiom would not allow the noun to stand alone, and because the introduction of the indefinite article might have introduced an idea of oneness or individuality, which was not in any degree traceable in the original. In a word, we have been careful to observe the use of the article wherever it seemed to be idiom- atically possible : where it did not seem to be possible, we have yielded to necessity. PREFACE. xvii As to the pronouns and the place they occupy in the sentence, a subject nften overlooked by our predecessors, we have been particularly careful ; but here again we have frequently been baffled by structural or idigmatical peculiarities of the English language which precluded changes otherwise desirable. In the case of the particles we have met with less difficulty, and have been able to maintain a reasonable amount of consistency. The particles in the Greek Testament are, as is well known, comparatively few, and they are commonly used with j^recision. It has therefore been the more necessary here to preserve a general uniformity of rendering, especially in the case of the particles of causality and inference, so far as English idiom would allow. Lastly, many changes have been introduced in the rendering of the prepositions, especially where ideas of instrumentality or of mediate agency, distinctly marked in the original, had been confused or ob- scured in the translation. We have however borne in mind the com- prehensive character of such prepositions as* of and 'by,' the one in reference to agency and the other in reference to means, especially in the English of the seventeenth century ; and have rarely made any change where the true meaning of the original as expressed in the Authorised Version would be apparent to a reader of ordinary intelligence. 3. We now come to the subject of Language. The second of the rules, by which the work has been governed, pre- scribed that the alterations to be introduced should be expressed, as far as possible, in the language of the Authorised Version or of the Versions that preceded it. To this rule we have faithfully adhered. We have habitually con- sulted the earlier Versions ; and in our sparing introduction of words not found in them or in the Authorised Version we have usually satisfied ourselves that such words were employed by standard writers of nearly the same date, and had also that general hue which justified their intro- duction into a Version which has held the highest place in the classical literature of our language. We have never removed any archaisms, whether in structure or in words, except where we were persuaded either that the meaning of the words was not generally understood, oi that the nature of the expression led to some misconception of the true sense of xviii PREFA CE. the passage. The frequent inversions of the strict order of the words, which add much to the strength and variety of tlie Authorised Version, and giwan archaic colour to many felicities of diction, have been seldom modified. Indeed, we have often adopted the same arrangement in our own alterations ; and in this, as in other particulars, we have sought tc assimilate the new work to the old. In a few exceptional cases we have failed to find any word in the older stratum of our language that appeared to convey the precise meaning of the original. There, and there only, we have used words of a later date ; but not without having first assured ourselves that they are to be found in the writings of the best authors of the period to which they belong. In regard of Proper Names no rule was prescribed to us. In the case of names of frequent occurrence we have^deemed it best to follow gen- erally the rule laid down for our predecessors. That rule, it may be remembered, was to this effect, * 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.' Some difficulty has been felt in dealing with names less familiarly known. Here our geheral practice has been to follow the Greek form of names, except in the case of persons and places mentioned in the Old Testament : in this case we have followed the Hebi-ew. 4. The subject of the Marginal Notes deserves special attention. They represent the results of a large amount of careful and elaborate discussion, and will, perhaps, by their very presence, indicate to some extent the intricacy of many of the questions that have almost daily come before us for decision. These Notes fall into four main groups: first, notes specify- ing such differences of reading as were judged to be of sufficient import- ance to require a particular notice ; secondly, notes indicating the exact rendering of words to which, for the sake of English idiom, we were obliged to give a less exact rendering in the text ; thirdly, notes, very few in number, affording some explanation which the original apjieared to require; fourthly, alternative renderings in difficult or debateable pas- sages. The notes of this last group are numerous, and largely in excess of those which were admitted by our predecessors. In the 270 years that have passed away since their labours were concluded, the Sacred Text has been minutely examined, discussed in every detail, and ana- PREFACE. lysed with a grammatical precision unknown in the days of the last Kevis- ion. There has thus been accumulated a large amount of materials that have prepared the way for diflferent renderings, which necessarily came under discussion. We have therefore placed before the reader in the margin other renderings than those which were adopted in the text, where- ever such renderings seemed to deserve consideration. The rendering in the text, where it agrees with the Authorised Version, was supported by at least one third, and, where it differs from the Authorised Version, by at least two thirds of those who were present at the second revision of the passage in question. A few supplementary matters have yet to be mentioned. These may be thus enumerated, — the use of Italics, the arrangement in Paragraphs, the mode of printing Quotations from the Poetical Books of the Old Testament, the Punctuation, and, last of all, the Titles of the different Books that make up the New Testament, — all of them particulars on which its seems desirable to add a few explanatory remarks. (a) The determination, in each place, of the words to be printed in italics has not been by any means easy ; nor can we hope to be found in all cases perfectly consistent. In the earliest editions of the Authorised Version the use of a different type to indicate supplementary words not contained in the original was not very frequent, and cannot easily be reconciled with any settled principle. A review of the words so printed was made, after a lapse of some years, for the editions of the Authorised Version publislied at Cambridge in 1629 and 1638. Further, though slight, modifications were introduced at intervals between 1638 and the more systematic revisions undertaken respectively by Dr. Paris in the Cambridge Edition of 1762, and by Dr. Blayney in the Oxford Edition of 1769. None of them however rest on any higher authority than that of of the persons who from time to time superintended the publication. The last attempt to bring the use of italics into uniformity and consistency was made by Dr. Scrivener in the Paragraph Bible published at Cambridge in 1870-73. In succeeding to these labours, we have acted on the general principle of printing in italics words which did not appear to be neces- sarily involved in the Greek. Our tendency has been to diminish rathei than to increase the amount of italic printing ; though, in the case of difference of readings, we have usually marked the absence of any words XX PREFACE. in the original wliich the sense might nevertheless require to be present in the Version ; and again, in the case of inserted pronouns, where the reference did not appear to be perfectly certain, we have similarly had recourse to italics. Some of these cases, especially when there are slight differences of reading, are of singular intricacy, and make it impossible to maintain rigid uniformity. {[)) We have arranged the Sacred Text in paragraphs, after the pre- cedent of the earliest English Versions, so as to assist the general reader in following the current of narrative or argument. The present arrange- ment will be found, we trust, to have preserved the due mean between a system of long portions which must often include several separate topics, and a system of frequent breaks which, though they may correctly indi- cate the separate movements of thought in the writer, often seriously impede a just perception of the true continuity of the passage. The traditional division into chapters, which the Authorised Version inherited from Latin Bibles of the later middle ages, is an illustration of the former method. These paragraphs, for such in fact they are, frequently include several distinct subjects. Moreover they sometimes, though rarely, end where there is no sufficient break in the sense. The division of chapters into verses, which was introduced into the New Testament for the first time in 1551, is an exaggeration of the latter method, with its accompanying inconveniences. The seiious obstacles to the right understanding of Holy Scripture, which are interposed by minute subdivision, are often overlooked ; but if any one will consider for a moment the injurious effect that would be produced by breaking up a portion of some great standard work into separate verses, he will at once perceive how necessary has been an alteration in this particular. The arrangement by chapters and verses undoubtedly affords facilities for reference : but this advantage we have been able to retain by placing the numerals in the text at the beginning of the chapters and verses. (c) A few words will suffice as to the mode of printing quotations from the Poetical Books of the Old Testament. Wherever the quo- tation extends to two or more lines, our practice has been to recognise the parallelism of their structure by arranging the lines in a manner that appears to agree with the metrical divisions of the Hebtew original. Such an arrangement will be found helpful to the reader ; not only as directing his attention to the "poetical character of the quotation, but as PREFA CE. xxi also tending to make its force and pertinence more fully felt. We have treated in the same way the hymns in the first two cha2:)ters of the Gospel according to St. Luke. id) Great care has been bestowed on the punctuation. Our practice has been to maintain what is sometimes called the heavier system of stopping, or, in other words, that system which, especially for convenience in reading aloud, suggests such pauses as will best ensure a clear and intelligent setting forth of the true meaning of the words. This course has rendered necessary, especially in the Epistles, a larger use of colons and semicolons than is customary in modern English printing. (e) We may in the last jilace notice one particular to which we were not expressly directed to extend our revision, namely, the titles of the Books of the New Testament. These titles are no part of the original text ; and the titles found in the most ancient manuscripts are of too short a form to be convenient for use. Under these circumstances, we have deemed it best to leave unchanged the titles which are given in the Authorised Version as printed in 1611. We now conclude, humbly commending our labours to Almighty God, and praying that his favour and blessing may be vouchsafed to that which has been done in his name. We recognised from the first the responsibility of the undertaking ; and through our manifold expe- rience of its abounding difficulties we have felt more and more, as we went onward, that such a work can never be accomplished by organised eiibrts of scholarship and criticism, unless assisted by Divine help. We know full well that defects must have their j^lace in a work so long and so arduous as this which has now come to an end. Blemishes and imperfections there are in the noble Translation which we have been called upon to revise ; blemishes and imperfections will assuredly be found in our own Kevision. All endeavours to translate the Holy Scriptures into another tongue must fall short of their aim, when the obligation is imposed of producing a Version that shall be alike literal and idiomatic, faithful to each thought of the original, and yet, in the expression of it, harmonious and free. While we dare to hope that in places not a few of the New Testament the introduction of slight changes has cast a new light upon much that was difficult and obscure, we cannot xxii PEEFA CE. forget how often we have failed in expressing some finer shade of meaning which we recognised in the original, how often idiom has stood in the way of a perfect rendering, and how often the attempt to preserve a familiar form of words, or even a familiar cadence, has only added another perplexity to those which already beset us. Thus, in the review of the work which we have been permitted to complete, our closing words must be words of mingled thanksgiving, humility, and prayer. Of thanksgiving, for the many blessings vouch- safed to us throughout the unbroken progress of our corporate labours ; of humility, for our failings and imperfections in the fulfilment of our task ; and of prayer to Almighty God, that the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be more clearly and more freshly shewn forth to all who shall be readers of this Book. Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey. llth November 1880. THE NAMES AND ORDER OF ALL THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. PAGE S. Matthew 81 S. Mark 195 S. Luke 267 S. John 391 The Acts 479 To THE Romans 599 I. Corinthians 647 II. Corinthians 694 To THE Galatians 725 To THE Ephesians 741 To THE Philippians 759 To THE COLOSSIANS 770 I. Thessalonians 781 II. Thessalonians 790 PACK I. Timothy 796 II. Timothy 808 To Titus 817 To Philemon 822 To THE Hebrews 825 James 860 I. Peter 873 II. Peter 886 I. John 894 II. John 906 III. John 908 JUDE 910 Revelation 913 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. CHAPTER I. now THE BIBLE CAME TO US. No literary sensation since letters were invented lias equal- led that caused by the issue of the Revised Version of the New Testament on the twentieth day of May, 1881. Public ex- pectation had been excited to the utmost by newspaper com- ments, ministerial discussions, and conversations in every in- telligent home. Although the most liberal preparations had been made to supply the popular demand for the new book, they proved entirely in- adequate. It w^as cabled from England that two millions of copies were sold in London within the first two days. The four hundred thousand copies imported into America were not adequate to supply the tirst day's orders. The leading book-stores of New York and Philadelphia were thronged with eager buyers as soon as opened. Copies went to every considerable city and town by lightning express. Some of the great daily papers reprinted the whole of the revised New Tes- tament in a single issue, and disposed of immense^ editions. The news-stands displayed the new book side by side with the daily and weekly papers. Newsboys, with arms full of Testaments, shouted it about the post-offices, exchanges, and leading resorts, and found eager customers. Readers who study this new version of the Word of God will wish to know how it Avas secured, and we purpose to tell for them briefly the story of the Revised New Testament. To understand this fully, we must go hMck to the original tongues of Scripture. 31 32 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. THE OLD TESTAMENT IN HEBREW. The Bible contains a revela- tion from God concerning truth, duty, and destiny. Holy men of old Avrote as they were in- spired by the Holy Ghost. They must use language w^hich men could understand. In Old Testament times Hebrew was the language of God's people, and so that portion of the di- \'ine Word was wi'itten in the Hebrew tongue. The Jews preserved their sacred w^ritings with the utmost care. Each word and letter was counted. The Hebrew Bible of to-day is printed from the so-called Mas- ore tic text, which was punctu- ated and vocalized by a body of Jewish scholars who lived at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, and at Sora in the Euphrates Valley, from the sixth to the twelfth centuries. They affixed the vowel points, wdiich w^ere not in the original text. The oldest existing Hebrew manu- scripts date from the tenth century. The whole Hebrew Bible w^as first printed in 1488, before Columbus discovered America. A second edition ap- peared in 1494, and all Hebrew Bibles printed since that time have been substantially repro- ductions of those two editions. The conquests of Alexander the Great extended the use of the Greek tongue, which grad- ually became the medium of communication throughout the civilized w^orld. It supplanted the Hebrew in common use among the Jew^s, and the Old Testament w^as ti'anslated into Greek by a company of learned Jews at Alexandria, b. c. 285. This translation was called the Septuagint — i. e. seventy, a round numbei* for the seventy- two scholars who are said to have been engaged upon it. The Septuagint, commonly desig- nated by the Koman numerals LXX., was in general use in the time of Christ. It w^as quoted from by the New Testament writers and the Greek Fathers, was made the basis of early translations into Latin, and is the authority in the Greek Church to this day. THE NEW TESTAMENT IN GREEK. As Greek w^as the language both of scholarship and com- mon life at the beginning of HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. the Christian era, the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, between the years 39 and 98 a. d. It was a literary age, and copies of the sacred text multiplied rapidl}^ The manuscripts were all written out by hand, and of course were liable to many errors. They were also written upon perish- able materials, and would natu- rally be destroyed in the lapse of time. But, more than tliis, a determined attempt was made to destroy the sacred writings. The emperor Diocletian issued an edict in 303 a. d. that all copies of the Scriptui'es should* be burned. No manuscripts of the Scriptures of an earlier date than the fourth century are now known to be in existence. INTIIEBEGI NNINGWAST HEWORDAiSr DTIIEWORD WASWITHG ODANDTIIE WORDWASQ ODTIIESAiME WASINTIIEB EOINNINGW ITIIGODALL TIIINGSWER The material was parchment in book-form. The uncials go down to the tenth century. The most important uncial manuscripts are the Sinaitic of the fourth century (discovered by Prof. Tischendorf in the convent of 3 In the case of the New Tes- tament the number of manu- scripts is very large, considering the labor and expense of tran- scribing. They are divided into two classes : The uncials, which are written throughout in capi- tals, and with no division of words or of sentences, and with very few and simple marks of punctuation. The writing is in columns of uniform width, from one to fo.ur on a page, the letters filling out the page iri-espective of the completion of a word. The pages resembled the follow- ing in their general appearance, though they were of coui'se wider and longer; and from these specimens some idea may be formed of the difficulty of reading uncial manuscripts : EMADEBYHI MANDWITHO UTHIMWASN OTANYTHIN GMADETHA TWASMADE INHIMWASLI FEANDTIIELI FEAVASTIIELI GIITOFMENA NDTIIELIGIIT SHINETIIIND John i. 1-5. St. CatheHne, on Mount Sinai, 1859, and published in fac- simile 1862), the Vatican of the same age (in the Yatican Library at Rome), and the some- what later Alexandrian (in the British Museum, London). Specimens of existing Mcsti. of llie acrjptures. TDTH ceYcesei^KG MycTH f / o Nioce 4th Cent. Codex Sinaiticus.— 1 Tim iii. 16. TO Tijs eutrcjSeiM | ixvaTrjpiov [9« late corr.] os «. MOrCM H Cdrc*€K[^ 4th Cent. Codex Sinaiticus.— Jolin i. 18. yoyevijs 6[eo]s [o )i' | wpos to»' 0[€o]v Kai d[eo] s rjv o Aoyo* lOth Cent. Codex Basiliensis, known to Erasmus, but little used by him. -Luke i. 1-2 nearly, as in all Greek Testaments. [From Dr. Sehaff's Dictionary of the Bible, by permission.] 34 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 35 The second kind of manu- scripts, the cursives, are so call- ed because written in running- liand. The uncial form was, however, retained for some time after this in church copies. CHAPTER 11. TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. Although the revelation of God's truth was first given to the race in Hebrew and Greek, it was designed to be extended to people of every tongue and nation. This truth was very early felt and acted upon by devout men. Even in the Old Testament times, as appears from Nehemiah viii. 8, the sa- cred Hebrew books were ex- plained in Chaldee for the ben- efit of the Jews, who had lost the knowledge of their native tongue during their captivity in Babylon. The Greek ver- sion, called the Septuagint, was made before the Christian era. A translation was made directly from the Hebrew into the Syr- iac. This version, called the Peshitc, probably dates from the second century. At a very early period a Latin version was made from the Septuagint, and the Latin Yulgate of Jerome was made a. d. 385-405. This version was declared by the Council of Trent in 1536 to be of equal authority with the original Scriptures. The Ger- man Bible now in use, the translation of Martin Luther, was first published in 1522, but before his time fourteen edi- tions of the entire Bible had been printed and circulated in Germany. A French version made by Le Fevre was pub- lished at Antwerp in 1530. Other French versions have been made by Olivetan (a cou- sin of Calvin, w^ho improved the translation), by Martin Os- tervald, and by De Sacy. A Dutch version was ordered by the Synod of Dort, in 1619, which has been regarded ae "the most accurate of all pres- ent modern versions." EARLY ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS. The story of the English Bi ble is one of the most remark able in all the history of the Book of books since the manu- scripts left the hands of the in- spired writers. 36 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. In a book entitled " Our En- glish Bible and its Ancestors," the Rev. Mr. Walden says : *' The experience of the Bible in its endeavors to reach the people has its best and most heroic history in the case of the Anglo-Saxon mind and of the English tongue. The spirit of Anglican independence of the Roman rule has in this its most striking illustration, and the annals of the Reformation in England are bound up and identical with the annals of the English Bible. There would seem to have been a remark- able tendency in the early Eng- lish Church, before Roman in- terference set in so strongly, to bring the Scriptures to the common people. In the great British collections, the libraries of Oxford, of Cambridge, and of the British Museum, many vestiges of this tendency may be found in curious fragments of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-iS'or- man versions — rude and imper- fect attempts to get portions of the Bible into the vernacular. The oldest of these, attributed to Caedmon, a monk, is the Bi- ble history paraphrased in the alliterative verse of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The Venerable Bede, who always wrote in Latin, is yet associated with a version of St. John's Gospel in his na- tive tongue. A Psalter is ex- tant, said to be by a Saxon bishop of the seventh century. A few^ chapters of Exodus and the Psalms were translated by King Alfred, who is recorded to have said that he desired 'all the free-born youth of his king- dom should be able to read the English Scriptures.' There are three versions of the Gos- pels and some fragments of the Old Testament referred to the ninth and tenth centuries. Three or four more of the Gos- pels are assigned to the elev- enth and twelfth centuries. Then, in the thirteenth cen- tury, a translation into Norman French of the whole Bible by an unknown hand, and various fragmentary versions of the Psalms and other portions of the Bible, seem to haA^e ap- peared here and there; all in uncouth, grotesque, and unin tclligible lettering to tlie mod- ern eye, but hungrily read by the educated among the people HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 37 of those passing centuries." But the knowledge of letters at that time belonged only to the clerical and educated classes. The common people had no share in the word of God in their vernacular. When Wyc- liffe began his great work of translating the Scriptures, he declared that he found nothing extant to help him. The facts in the following account of succeeding translations have been derived largely from Dr. Schaff's " Dictionary of the Bible :" JOHN WYCLIFFE'S TRANSLATION. John Wycliffe lived in the fourteenth century, in the dawn of English literature. He was contemporary with Chaucer the poet and Mandeville. The great seats of learning, Oxford and Cambridge, in his day be- came, in a measure, worthy the name of universities. Oxford is said to have had thirty thou- sand students in the beginning of the fourteenth century. But ])rinting was not yet discovered, and all books had to be multi- plied by the slow process of writino; them out bv hand. The work of translation occu- pied Wycliffe many years. The Eev. Dr. Krauth, in "Anglo-American Bible Revis- ion," writes of him : " Called to the work of reformation in faith and life, he saw, with the divine instincts of his mission, that nothing but the true rule of faith and life could remove the evil and restore the good, and that the restoration would be permanent only in the de- gree to which every estate of the Church should be enabled, by possession of the rule, to apply and guard its teachings. He appealed to the Word, and to sustain his appeal translated the Word. He appealed to the people, and put into their hands the book divinely given to shape their convictions. The trans- lation of the Scriptures as a whole into English first came from his hands or under his supervision. It was finished in the last quarter of the four- teenth century. It was made from the Vulgate. Even had Wycliffe been a Greek and Hebrew scholar, it is doubtl'ul whether he could have secured texts of the sacred originals HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. from which to translate." His version appeared in 1380, and was eagerly read. The Arch- bishop of Canterbury threaten- ed the "greater excommunica- tion upon any one who should read Wycliffe's version or any other, publicly or privately." Nearly half a century after his death the bones of Wycliffe were dug up and burned, by order of the Pope, and his ashes thrown into the Avon : " The Avon to the Severn runs, The Severn to the sea, And Wyclifle's dust shall spread abroad, Wide as the waters be." WILLIAM TYNDALE'S TRANSLATION. The method of printing from movable type was discovered in the fifteenth century, and rendered efficient service in disseminating the translations of Scripture subsequently made. William Tyndale was born in 1484, and was burnt at the stake as a martyr to religious liberty, October 5, 1536. He determined " to cause the boy who driveth the plough to know more of the Sci'iptures" than had been known by those w^ho pretended to be learned di- vines. Luther w\as his con- temporary, and it ie said that the two great translators met at Wittenberg. Tyndale' s trans- lation appeared at Worms in 1525, and was circulated in England in 1526. MILES COVERDALE (1488-1569) is the next name upon the list. His translation of the entire Bible appeared October 4, 1535, prefaced by a fulsome dedication to the king, Henry YIII. In order to render the volume more attractive, it was illustrated with several wood- cuts. It was avowedly not made from the original tongues, but from three Latin and two German translations. The Old Testament was based chiefly on the Swdss-German (Zurich) Bible, and the New Testament on Tyndale, although with many variations. This translation had but little influence upon the so-called Authorized Ver- sion. THE "THOMAS MATTHEW " BIBLE was a compilation, although not a mechanical one, under this assumed name, made by John Rodgers (1505-55), Tyn- HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. dale's friend — who is famous as the first Marian martyr, burnt at Smithfield, February 1, 1555 — from tlie above-men- tioned translations of Tyndale and Coverdale. It was pub- lished in London, 1537, but probably printed by Jacob van Meteren in Antwerp. The publishers, Messrs. Grafton & Whitechurch, in some way in- terested Archbishop Cranmer in this edition Avho, through Crumw^ell, Earl of Essex, pro- cured a royal license for it, and this Bible became the fii'st authorized version. RICHARD TAVENER (1505-75) issued a revised edition of the Matthew Bible in 1539, but it never w^as widely used. Its sale may have been stopped by the publication of the so- called Great Bible. THE " GREAT BIBLE," sometimes called White- church's, after one of the print- ers' name, or oftener " Cran- mer's Bible," from the mis- taken idea that he was the editor of it, was published in London, 1539. Its name came from its size; its pages arc fully fifteen inches in length and over nine in breadth. Its text is Matthew's, revised by Coverdale. It was the first edition which printed in a dif- ferent type the words not found in the original. It also derives interest from the fact that the Scripture sentences in the Eng- lish Prayer-book in the Com- munion Service, in the Homi- lies, and the entire Psalter are taken from it. In 1540 appeared the Cran- mer Bible, so called from the Archbishop's prologue, but in fact only a new revised edition of the Great Bible of the pre- vious year. THE GENEVA VERSION (1560) was made by the refugees from the Marian persecution, princi- pally by William Whittingham (1524-89), whose wife was Cal- vin's sister. But the Genevan Bible must not be confounded with the New Testament which appeared there in June, 1557, the fruit of the editorial labors of Whittingham. The Gene- van Bible was begun the Jan- uary following. The New Tes- 40 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. tament had for the first time the division of verses (follow- ing the Greek of Stephens, 1551), with the numbers pre- fixed. It had also characteris- tic marginal notes, and marked by italics the words supplied. ". . . It became at once the people's book in England and Scotland, and it held its place not only during the time of the Bishops' Bible, but even against the present Authorized Version for at least thirty years. It was the first Bible ever printed in Scotland (1576- 79), and it was the cherished volume in all Covenanting and Puritan households." — Eadie : The English Bible, vol. ii. p. 15. TUE bishops' bible. In the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign the Great Bi- ble was allowed to be read in the churches as the authorized version, but the Genevan edi- tion was a formidable rival, greatly excelling it in popular- ity, and besides in accuracy. Thus it came about that a re- vision was demanded, and this Archbishop Parker (1504-75) was anxious to make. He began it about 1563-64, having dis- tributed the work to fifteen scholars, eight of whom were bishops, and therefore the Bibhi was called "The Bishops' Bi- ble," and the book was pub- lished in 1568. It was a re- vision of the Great Bible, which in turn was based on "Mat- thcAv's" rescension of Tyndale. An effort was made to secure for the Bishops' Bible the royal sanction, but ineffectually. Con- vocation, however, passed a de- cree in 1571, "that every arch- bishop and bishop should have at his house a copy of the Holy Bible of the largest volume as lately printed in London, and that it should be placed in the hall or large dining-room, that it might be useful to their ser- vants or to strangers." The or- der applied to each cathedral, and, "so far as could be con- veniently done, to all the churches." The Bishojos' Bi- ble supplanted the Great Bible, but could not the Genevan, because that was widespread among the people. The most important fact in its history is that it was made the basis for the rescension which resulted HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 41 in tlie King James's version, which has been before the peo- ple as the authorized version for two and a half centuries. CHAPTER III. THE KING James's version. This version has so long held undisputed s^vay that most of its common readers can scarce think of any other as the true Bible. And all those who read editions issued from the presses of Great Britain are familiar with the dedication : TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE JAMES. BY THE GRACIS OF GOD, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, Ac, The Translators of the Bible wish Grace, Mercy, and Peace, through JESUS CHRIST our Lord. This piece of fulsome adula- tion has very happily disap- peared from most of the Bibles issued from the American press. TUE ORIGIN OF THE KING JAMES'S AVERSION. A recent article in the "North American Review" sketched the beginnings of this important movement : " The authorized English ver sion, so called — although il was never properly authorized either by king, or parliament, or convocation, but simply by usage — had its birth in the Hampton Court Conference, held in January, 1604. In that noble palace, built nearly a hundred years before by Cardi- nal Wolsey, on the banks of the Thames, and presented to Henry YIIL, there assembled in the presence of King James, and at his invitation. Arch- bishop Whitgift of Canterbury, Bishop Bancroft of London, seven other bishops, and eight deans, on the part of the con- servative conformists, and four leaders of the progressive Puri- tan party, with the learned Dr. John Reynolds of Oxford, to confer about the burning ques- tions which agitated the then undivided Church of England. The king acted both as mode- rator and judge, and lost no chance to display his learning and wit during the debate. He rudely rejected every petition of the Puritans, using as his 42 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. final argument : ' I will make tliem conform themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse.' By doing worse, he meant, 'just hang them, that is all.' This was his short method with dis- senters. "In one point, however, he yielded to the obnoxious Puri- tans, notwithstanding the i)ro- test of the bishops. This was the revision of the Bishops' Bi- ble, which had, from Queen Elizabeth's time, been used in all the churches of England, while the Geneva Bible of 1560 was the favorite version of the common people in their families. " Dr. Reynolds, the real mov- er of the enterprise, is described by Anthony Wood as a prodig- ious scholar, who 'had turned over all writers, profane, eccle- siastical, and divine, all the councils, fathers, and histories of the Church.' He was com- missioned as one of the transla- tors of the company which had in charge the prophetical books of the Old Testament, but he died in May, 1607, four years before the publication of the work. "The king was not slow in making preparations. In July of the same year he commis- sioned fifty-four dignitaries and scholars, who had been selected by some unknown but, no doubt, competent authority, to carry out the revision, and directed Bancroft, who in the mean time had become archbishop of Can- terbury, to make provision for the compensation of the trans- lators by church preferment. He divided them into six classes, who were to meet at Westminster (London), Cam- bridge, and Oxford, two classes in each place." Although the number of translators appointed was 54, only 47 were actually engaged in the work. The following are the rules which were composed to govern them in their labors : " (1.) The ordinary Bible read in the Church, commonly called 'The Bishops' Bible,' to be followed, and as little alter- ed as the truth of the original will permit. " (2.) The names of the prophets and the holy writers, with the other names of the HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. text, to be retained as nigli as may be, accordingly as they were vulgarly used. " (3.) The old ecclesiastical words to be kept ; viz. : the word church not to be trans- lated congregation, etc. "(4.) When a -word hath divers significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by tlie most ancient fathers, being agree- able 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 preserved in the text. " (7.) Such quotations of places to be originally 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 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 difier upon any place, to send them word thereof, note the place, and withal send the reasons ; to which if they con- sent not, the difi^rence 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 author- ity 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 44 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT, to move and charge as many as being skilful in the tongues, and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particidai' observations to the company either at Westminster, Cam- bridge, or Oxford. '' (13.) The directors in each company to be the deans of Westminster and Chester for that place, and the king's pro- fessors of Hebrew and Greek in either university. " (14.) These translations to be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishops' Bible : Tindale's, Matthew's [Rogers'], Coverdale's, Whit- church's [Cranmer's], Geneva. "(15.) Besides the said di- rectors 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 con- ference Avith the rest of the heads, to be overseers of the translations, as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better ob- servation of the fourth rule above specified." How closely these rules were followed it is impossible to say. A passing remark of Selden furnishes nearly all that can now be known of what may be termed the i)rivate history of our English Bible : "The trans- lation in King James's time took an excellent way. That part of the Bible was given to him who was most excellent in such a tongue, and then they met together, and one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, etc. If they found any fault, they spoke ; if not, he read on." — Table Talk. When the revis- ion was completed, three copies of the whole Bible were sent [to London] — one from Cam- bridge, a second from Oxford, and a third from Westminster — where they were committed to six persons, two from each company, who reviewed the whole. This final revision lasted nine months. The work was at last given up to the printer, Bobert Barker; the proofs were read by Dr. Thomas Bilson, bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Myles Smith (appointed bishop of Gloucester in 1612). HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 45 The first edition of the new i-evision bore the date of 1611. The printing of the Bishops' I^ible was soon stopped, but the Genevan Bible continued to be used until about the middle of the seventeenth century, when King James's version gained general acceptance, and has so continued to be the Bible of the more than a hundred mil- lions of English-sjoeaking peo- ple. The beauty of its style has drawn praises from men of most diverse tastes. Mr. Huxley says: "It is wiitten in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in ex- (piisite beauties of mei'C lit- erary form." Dr. F. Williau Faber says: " It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church-bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rathei" than mere words. It is pait of the national mind and the anchor of national serious- ness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent tra- ditions of childhood are stereo- typed in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments; and all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good speaks to him for ever out of his Eng- lish Bible." Rev. Dr. Krautli, one of the Revisers, writes : " The Bible of 1611 encountered prejudices and overcame them ; it had rivals great in just claims and strong in possession, and it dis- placed them; it moved slowly that it might move surely ; the Church of England lost many of her children, but they all took their mother's Bible with them, and, taking that, they w^ere not "wholly lost to her. It more and more melted indiffer- ence into cordial admiration, secured the enthusiastic ap- proval of the cautious scholar, and won the artless love of the people. It has kindled into fervent praise men w^ho were cold on every other theme. It glorified the tongue of the w^or- shipper in glorifying God, and by the inspiration indw^elling in it, and the inspiration it has 46 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. imparted, has created English literature." Kev. Mr. Walden beautifully says: "The English Bible, in its present form two hundred and sixty years old in this year of grace, given to the public when Shakespeare, and Bacon, and Raleigh, and Ben Jonson, and Drayton, and Beaumont and Fletcher were living to read and admire, the richest formation of that great and plastic era of our language, the 'bright consummate flower' of saintly labor and scholarly genius, the wonder of literature, coming down wdth the works of Shakespeare, and, like them, preserving to us the wealth and force of the Saxon tongue — our mother English in its simpli- city and perfect beauty — the picturesque structure of an age now long gone by, already gray with antiquity, in whose famil- iar forms of speech the voices of our forefathers and kindred linger, and the inspiration of the Almighty seems to speak as with the majesty of an origi- nal utterance, — the English Bi- ble has impressed itself with an almost overpowering au- thority upon the Christian heart of to-dav, and is looked upon, in many cases, as if it were the actual production of the ancient scribe, and its pages are read and pondered over as if they contained the ultimate and unalterable expression of Divine truth." It is hard to realize, without stopping to reflect, how long the King James's version has been dominant. Its revisers were at their work when James- town, which claims the honor of being the oldest English settlement in America, was founded. The completed work was published in full nearly ten years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, in Massachusetts. Nearly the whole of American history has been written while the English Bible has remained unchanged. Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Bunyan, Newton, have added imperishable treasures to Eng- lish literature. Two centuries and a half of scholarship have been concentrated upon every phase of the divine Word. The time for a revised version of the Scriptures has come. HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. 47 CHAPTER IV. THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. The New Testament, as the inspired word of God, was writ- ten in Greek. The English reader is entitled to the best translation of the best Greek manuscripts. The Greek text upon which the version of 1611 was based was imperfect. Prof. Ezra Abbott, of Harvard Col- lege, one of the ablest living authorities upon this matter, in an article* first published in the "The Sunday-School World," on " The New Testament Text," states the case as follows : FORMER GREEK TEXTS. "The principal editions of the Greek Testament, wdiich in- fluenced, directly or indirectly, the text of the common version, are those of Erasmus, five in number (1516-35) ; Robert Stephens (Estienne Stephanus) of Paris and Geneva, four edi- tions (1546-51) ; Beza, four editions in folio (1565-98), and five smaller editions (1565- 1604) ; and the Complutensian Polyglott (1514, published in 1522). Without entering into minute details, it is enough to say that all these edition* were founded on a small number of inferior and comparatively modern manuscripts, very im- perfectly collated; and that they consequently contain a multitude of errors, which com- parison with older and better copies has since enabled us to discover and correct. . . . Grant- ing thatnot many of the changes required can be called import- ant, still, in the case of writings so precious as those of the New Testament, every one must feel a strong desire to have the text freed as far as possible from later corruptions, and restored to its primitive purity." The work of restoring the text is figuratively and forcibly de- scribed by Rev. Mr. Walden in his book, before quoted : "To recur to the obvious analogy which has prevailed through this history : after two hundred and sixty years have passed it has been found neces- sary to re-examine and repair the ancient building of the Au- thorized Version. A new set of workmen have been down in the crypt of the original A8 HISTORY OF THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT. languages, and while they have found the massive walls and vaulted archways generally se- cure, yet, in the New Testament especially, they have discover- ed so many minor imperfec- tions in this textual foundation, which Erasmus, Ximenes, Ste- ])hens, and Beza laid, that its solidity is seriously affected. These new workmen upon the deep-laid foundations, and in a darkness which has all along removed them from popular >iglit and appreciation, are al- most too many now to men- tion in detail. We must con- tent ourselves with the names of the master- workmen. John Mill began at it before the seventeenth century was out. Then Bengel and Wetstein, in Grermany, devoted themselves to it in the first part of the eighteenth century, In this the nineteenth century, Gries- Dach, Scholtz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, all Germans, and Tregelles, Words^^T)rth, Ellicott, and Alford, all Englishmen, have labored so magnificently that even the unscholarly mind has sometimes taken a rusli- light and gone down into the crypt to curiously view their stupendous achievements in the way of emendation, and the astonishing contributions to the strength of the original walls, which several of them have made in their discovery of* forgotten stones, chiselled for this very work, but left in the quarry until now." To the above names should be add- ed those of Bentley, Professor A^^estcott, and Dr. Hort (who have been engaged for more than twenty years in the prep- aration of a critical edition of the New Testament), Dr. Scriv- ener and Bishop Lightfoot, not to mention others of acknow- ledged critical ability. ]MATERIAT