The Tercentenary^ 1611-1911 
 
 OUR 
 
 G;LISH BIBLE 
 
 :E HISTORY OF ITS 
 DEVELOPMENT 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. O. BEVAN, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF CHILLENDEN, CANTERBURY 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY 
 [THE MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON, K.G. 
 
 1 
 
 455 
 B5 
 
 LGE ALLEN & SONS
 
 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE
 
 ExLibris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ITS 
 
 DEVELOPMENT 
 
 1611-1911 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. O. BEVAN 
 
 M.A., F.G.S., Assoc.Inst.C.E., F.S.A. 
 
 Fellow of the College of Preceptors, and Examiner 
 
 Sometime Prizeman, Exhibitioner, and Foundation 
 
 Scholar of Emmanuel College, Cambridge 
 
 Rector of Chillenden, Canterbury 
 
 Author of " The Genesis and Evolution of the Individual Soul, 
 
 " The Birth and Growth of Toleration, and other Essays," 
 
 " Egypt and the Egyptians," &c., &c. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE 
 
 MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON, K.G. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & SONS 
 
 44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
 
 -BS 
 
 LTT?P A r> v 
 
 v., T _ 
 
 SANTA BAIiBAIU 
 
 DEDICA TED 
 BY KIND PERMISSION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MOST HONOURABLE THE 
 MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON, K.G.
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 IT has added not a little to my knowledge of the 
 history of " The Book " in reading this work on 
 the English Bible ; and as an historical account 
 of the steps whereby it has assumed its present 
 form, it is not only interesting, but is a valuable 
 addition to other books on the same subject. 
 
 NORTHAMPTON. 
 
 CASTLE ASHBY, NORTHAMPTON, 
 Nov. 19, 1910. 
 
 vii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 FOR three hundred years the Authorised Version 
 has been the light and joy of the English people 
 all the world over. 
 
 As has been well said : " More than a century 
 had gone to the making of this Version ; and, 
 in taking its final form, it happily fell upon the 
 period when our language had achieved its highest 
 literary prosaic and poetic perfection. Hence, 
 the sacred message was set forth in the matchless 
 prose bequeathed to us by the great Elizabethan 
 writers ; so that, in all probability, the Bible will 
 survive all other classics of English literature, as 
 a monument of our language at its sweetest and 
 best." 
 
 The author puts forth this little work with the 
 earnest wish that it may stimulate the interest of 
 all classes and religious denominations in "the 
 Book which is above all others." 
 
 He considers himself fortunate in being
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 permitted to dedicate it to the Marquess of 
 Northampton, whose interest in this particular 
 subject is well known. 
 
 Most persons have a very imperfect idea of 
 the material and form utilised and exhibited in 
 the early manuscripts of the Sacred Scriptures. 
 Such individuals may obtain a good impression 
 from an inspection of the Codex, given in 1581 
 by the reformer, Theodore Beza, to the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge, or from that presented in 
 1625 to King Charles I. by Cyril Lucar, the 
 Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, and hence called 
 Codex Alexandrinus. The former is lodged in 
 the University Library, the latter in the British 
 Museum. Reference may also be made to chap, 
 xxxii. in the author's work, entitled " Egypt and 
 the Egyptians," and, in general, for specimens of 
 both uncial and cursive MSS., to " Helps to the 
 Study of the Bible," bound up with the Oxford 
 Bible (London : Henry Frowde). 
 
 A few of the chained Bibles, which were set 
 up, by order, in the sixteenth century, still sur- 
 vive, as e.g. at Cumnor (Oxford) and Minster 
 (Thanet). Also, there are chained libraries at the
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 Cathedral, Hereford, and at All Saints' Church 
 in that city. 
 
 If any student desires to pursue further the 
 study of archaic words in the Bible (and Prayer 
 Book Psalms), facilities may be furnished by 
 " The Teacher's Bible," Frowde ; " The Teacher's 
 Prayer Book," Barry ; " Annotated Book of 
 Common Prayer," Blunt ; " The Prayer Book : 
 its History, Language, and Contents," Daniel ; 
 " Handbook to the Book of Common Prayer," 
 M'Neill; "A Scripture Vocabulary," Hill; " Hard 
 Words in the Prayer Book," Girdlestone. 
 
 Memories of many of the men referred to in 
 the following pages still cling around certain 
 well-known spots ; as e.g. of Bede, at Jarrow ; 
 of Caedmon, at Whitby Abbey (called Streane- 
 salch, in his day). Relics of Wycliffe are yet 
 found at Lutterworth ; Tyndale is commemorated 
 by a statue on the Thames Embankment (in- 
 augurated, May 7, 1884), and by a monument on 
 the Cotswold Hills, hard by the village where 
 he was born (either Nibley, or, more probably, 
 Slymbridge). 
 
 At Hampton Court was held the Conference of
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 1604, at which the production of our Authorised 
 Version was determined upon ; in the Jerusalem 
 Chamber, Westminster, from 1870 onwards, sat 
 those scholars whose labours were devoted to its 
 revision. 
 
 The printing of the Bible, in its ordinary form, 
 can be carried out only by license from the Crown. 
 Therefore, the king's printers, Messrs, Eyre and 
 Spottiswoode, together with the presses of Oxford 
 and Cambridge (cum privilegio ad impriniendum 
 solum) are concerned in this work. 
 
 Among the principal agencies which are estab- 
 lished to distribute the Bible, and to reproduce it 
 in foreign tongues, may be mentioned the British 
 and Foreign Bible Society, the Scottish Bible 
 Society, the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge, our chief missionary societies, and 
 the American Bible Society. 
 
 A peculiar interest attaches to the Welsh Bible. 
 The New Testament was put forth in 1567, 
 the Old in 1588; but even at the close of the 
 eighteenth century, Bibles throughout the whole 
 land were but few and far between, and it was 
 the persistency of Mary Jones, a young Welsh
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 girl, which drew the attention of the Rev. Thomas 
 Charles, of Bala, to the lack, and set in action 
 a train of circumstances which ultimately led to 
 the founding of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society. The then secretary of the Religious 
 Tract Society, when first appealed to on the sub- 
 ject, immortalised himself by the classic saying : 
 " If for Wales, why not for the world ? " 
 
 The author must not conclude without thank- 
 ing his friend, the Rev. R. V. Tremills, for many 
 useful suggestions. 
 
 CHILLENDEN RECTORY, CANTERBURY, 
 New Year's Day, 1911.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE . ' vii 
 
 PREFACE . ix 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION i 
 
 II. THE NEW TESTAMENT . . . . .12 
 
 III. VARIOUS VERSIONS . . . . . .16 
 
 IV. ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD . . . . .19 
 V. MEDIAEVAL PERIOD . ... 22 
 
 VI. REFORMATION PERIOD 27 
 
 VII. OUR "AUTHORISED" VERSION . . -41 
 
 VIII. THE REVISED VERSION . . 46 
 
 IX. PLEA FOR FURTHER REVISION . -53 
 
 X. DIVERS FACTS ... . 62 
 
 XI. SYNOPSIS OF DATES . -67 
 
 APPENDIX . ... ... 89
 
 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN this essay the writer has set himself to in- 
 dicate the various steps by which our present 
 translation of the Sacred Scriptures has been 
 arrived at, and has endeavoured to narrate this 
 story with its salient facts and dates, unen- 
 cumbered with any reflections or extraneous 
 matter. He has consulted a large number of 
 authorities too numerous to acknowledge by 
 name and has made copious extracts, altering 
 and adapting these to suit his immediate pur- 
 pose. 
 
 He has abstained from reflections bearing on 
 the sublimity of the message contained in the 
 Holy Book, and from historical disquisitions as 
 to its present form of translation and mode of 
 dispersion throughout the world. 
 
 He advocates a pilgrimage to the British
 
 2 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 Museum, 1 the John Rylands Library, Man- 
 chester, or the Bible House, 2 and an inspection 
 there of the various versions and editions 
 referred to in this brochure. Moreover, a visit 
 to certain well-known book-shops would enable 
 the curious to possess themselves of many in- 
 teresting specimens. 
 
 From the Greek, ra fiipXia = the Books, we 
 derive our word " Bible " in the singular number 
 = the Book = the collective Sacred Scriptures ; 
 but the word Bible is not found in this dis- 
 tinctive meaning in English literature till the 
 fourteenth century ; at an earlier period the 
 volume was sometimes called Bibliotheca = 
 Library, and with good reason, for (if we add 
 the glosses and commentaries based upon it) it 
 represents the entire literature of the Hebrew 
 people for more than 1000 years ; (according to 
 our division) arranged in 66 books 39 (40, 
 save i) of the Old Testament, 27 of the 
 New. From this computation the 14 Apocry- 
 phal books are excluded. 
 
 1 The B. M. Catalogue, Article " Bibles," is now published as a 
 separate volume. 
 
 2 The British and Foreign Bible Society (founded 1804), 
 146 Queen Victoria Street, London, E.G.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Thus the formation of the Canon of the Old 
 Testament was gradual, and was made out of 
 writings which spread over many centuries. 
 
 Before the Captivity, there are only faint 
 traces of the mode of preserving the sacred 
 writings. 
 
 Ezra, and the Great Synagogue, most pro- 
 bably determined the Canon of the Law in its 
 final shape, and Nehemiah gathered together 
 the Acts of the kings and the prophets, and the 
 writings of David and other psalmists and poets, 
 when founding a library for the second Temple 
 (2 Mace. ii. 13) c. 432 B.C. Its contents were 
 identical with our own, the thirty-nine books 
 being grouped so as to accord with the twenty- 
 two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the twelve 
 minor prophets counting as one, Ruth being 
 coupled with Judges, Ezra with Nehemiah, 
 Lamentations with Jeremiah, while the two 
 books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles were 
 reckoned as one each. 
 
 The standard copy thus produced was laid 
 up in the Temple, and was probably destroyed
 
 4 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 during the Maccabean wars, or, later, at the 
 taking of Jerusalem by the Romans, just as the 
 sacred autographs had been lost when Nebu- 
 chadnezzar took the city in 588 B.C. 
 
 The Jewish scribes divided the Old Testa- 
 ment into 669 sections. Subsequently the 
 Septuagint was portioned out into fifty-four 
 distinct parts. 
 
 The first notice of the Old Testament as a 
 collection of writings is in the Prologue to the 
 Greek translation of Ecclesiasticus (150 B.C.), 
 which specifies " the Law and the Prophets and 
 the other Books." 
 
 Josephus (A.D. 38-100) enumerates twenty- 
 two books as " divine," viz. five of Moses, 
 thirteen of Prophets (in which Job was probably 
 included), and four of Hymns and Directions of 
 life. He mentions as canonical all the books 
 of the Old Testament except Job, Proverbs, 
 Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, to which 
 he does not allude, as none of them furnished 
 any materials for his writings. 
 
 Of the catalogues of the Old Testament books 
 subsequent to this, the first extant is found in 
 the works of Melito, Bishop of Sardis (A.D. 1 80) ; 
 another was framed by Origen, a few years
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 later, and there are eight others, in the works 
 of the Fathers, down to S. Augustine in the 
 fifth century. 
 
 Then came the catalogues set forth by the 
 Councils, adding the New Testament ; that of 
 Laodicaea (A.D. 363) giving all our books except 
 the Revelation ; while that of Carthage adds 
 that work, and inserts also some portions of 
 the Apocrypha. 
 
 S. Jerome (A.D. 350 - 420) notices that the 
 twenty-two books coincide with the number of 
 the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and that the 
 five double-letters coincide with the five double- 
 books (viz. Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, 
 and Jeremiah). 
 
 With the exception of Judges, Ecclesiastes, 
 the Song of Solomon, Esther, Ezra, and Nehe- 
 miah, every book of the Old Testament is 
 quoted in the New. 
 
 Scholars agree that parts of the Old Testa- 
 ment may have existed in writing a thousand 
 years before the Christian era. These were 
 probably copied, at first, on skins in the form 
 of rolls. 1 
 
 Early Hebrew writing differed considerably 
 
 1 Vide the author's " Egypt and the Egyptians," p. 72.
 
 6 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 in form from modern Hebrew, in which the 
 characters are square. 
 
 For many centuries no vowel signs were used, 
 and the consonants were written without any 
 spaces between the words, although dots were 
 sometimes used. About the middle of the sixth 
 century A.D., when the Jews were much scattered, 
 the danger arose that the proper pronunciation 
 of Hebrew would be lost. Ultimately, a set 
 of scribes called Traditionalists 1 introduced a 
 complete system of points to indicate the vowels 
 as traditionally pronounced. Long before that 
 time the consonantal text had come to be re- 
 garded by the Jews as absolutely sacred in 
 every jot and tittle. The Traditionalists were 
 most careful to change nothing in the text 
 where change was obviously necessary they 
 placed notes to that effect in the margin. So 
 sacred was the text considered that everything 
 was reproduced : letters written large were 
 written large in the copy, those small were 
 kept small ; even signs unknown, some of 
 them probably due to accident, were faithfully 
 copied. 
 
 1 Or, Mas(s)oretes, from Masoreth = tradition ; connected by 
 some with Masar=to hand down, and by others with 'dsar=to 
 bind.
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 Thousands of copies of the Hebrew Scriptures 
 must have been made, at first on skins, and later, 
 on papyrus. But tens and hundreds perished in 
 these early centuries. The Jews themselves, in 
 superstitious reverence, hid away (when alarmed) 
 many copies that were not recovered, and were 
 thus lost for ever. They also destroyed all worn 
 manuscripts, lest the sacred text should suffer. 
 
 Scores of copies must have perished in the 
 sack of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and in the general 
 flight and slaughter which followed. 
 
 In the early persecutions of the Christians by, 
 or under, the Roman emperors, the most strenu- 
 ous attempts were made to stamp out Christianity 
 by destroying its literature, chiefly comprising 
 the Old and New Testaments. Indeed, the 
 marvellous preservation of the Sacred Scriptures, 
 in the course of so many years, may be regarded 
 as a continuous miracle. 
 
 During these times the word "traitor" arose, 
 being derived from traditor [tradere, "to betray," 
 " to give up," &c. (the sacred books)]. 
 
 Even more zealous than the early persecutors 
 were the followers of Mahomet, who, in their 
 mad career of conquest, sought to extirpate all 
 religious books save the Koran.
 
 8 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 The result is that the oldest part of the 
 Hebrew Bible in existence is a section of the 
 prophetical books made in A.D. 895 ; while the 
 oldest complete MS. of a whole Bible belongs to 
 the eleventh century A.D., so that we have very 
 few MSS. of the Old Testament to guide us ; 
 but those we possess are of great authority, 
 owing to the reverence of Jewish scribes for the 
 Word of God, and to the scrupulous carefulness 
 of their transcription. 
 
 If we remember that ten or twelve MSS., 
 and these comparatively modern, are all we 
 possess for ascertaining the text of most classical 
 authors, it will help us to understand what an 
 enormous mass of evidence is available for the 
 purposes of Scripture revision. 
 
 It may be remarked that the use of initial 
 letters, miniatures, and, in general, any orna- 
 mentation of manuscripts, marks these as being 
 of comparatively late date ; also, that the term 
 manuscripts is appropriated to copies of the 
 Scriptures in the original tongue, versions 
 to translations into the languages of early 
 Christendom.
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH 
 
 The Samaritans possess some very valuable 
 manuscripts, among them an ancient copy of 
 the Pentateuch, written in Phoenician characters ; 
 or, according to some, the ancient Hebrew char- 
 acters in use before the Babylonish Captivity. 
 There are some differences between this Penta- 
 teuch and that of the Jews, which are pro- 
 bably due to the inaccuracy of transcribers on 
 both sides. 
 
 In Europe, a few years ago, a forger en- 
 deavoured of course unsuccessfully to sell for 
 one million pounds a copy of this Pentateuch 
 inscribed on rams' skins, and stated to be of 
 fabulous age ! 
 
 THE SEPTUAGINT, OR LXX 
 
 This is the Greek version of the Old Testa- 
 ment used by the Hellenist Jews and by the 
 early Christians. The story of the Septuagint, 
 as given by Aristeas, is as follows : Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus, the son of Lagus, King of Egypt, 
 wished to add a specimen of the books of the 
 Jewish Law to his library at Alexandria, and
 
 io OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 sent to the High Priest, Eleazar, to ask for a 
 copy, and for competent persons to translate it 
 into Greek. Accordingly seventy-two men, six 
 from each tribe, were sent to Egypt, and, after 
 seventy-two days spent in translation, the five 
 books of the Pentateuch were completed, the 
 translators having assisted each other. Later 
 accounts introduce miraculous elements into the 
 story, and Justin Martyr states that each man 
 was shut up alone in a cell to translate the Old 
 Testament unaided, and that when the results 
 were compared they were found to agree in 
 every point ! 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA 
 
 This word means wholly concealed?- 
 The canonical books were published by the 
 Jews, but the doubtful books were not made 
 public. 
 
 The Septuagint, which is used in the Churches 
 of the East, of Russia, and of Greece, still retains 
 the Old Testament Apocrypha in their original 
 places ; and so also do the Latin Vulgate and 
 
 1 In some quarters the term "Apocrypha" was afterwards used 
 to convey the idea of spuriousness, but a better appellation 
 for the books in question would be " Deutero-Canonical " or 
 " Ecclesiastical."
 
 INTRODUCTION n 
 
 all English and other versions translated from 
 it, which are in use in Continental Churches, 
 and among the Romanists of England, Ireland, 
 America, and other countries. 
 
 In the Preface to our last revision of the 
 Apocrypha the circumstances are narrated under 
 which the work had been carried out. The 
 Westminster Committee completed their revision 
 of the version set forth in 1611, this revision 
 having been compared with the most ancient 
 authorities. It was published in 1896. 
 
 A long-standing controversy respecting the 
 circulation of the Old Testament Apocrypha by 
 the Bible Society was decided in the negative 
 in 1825. 
 
 There has recently been founded a " Society 
 of the Apocrypha " to promote the study of this 
 interesting collection of writings.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 IT is now generally admitted that all the books, 
 as we have them, of the New Testament were 
 in existence before, or soon after, the end of 
 the first century. But not for many subsequent 
 years did the New Testament (as a whole) 
 receive official recognition. 
 
 It is hardly likely that any written records, 
 even in Aramaic, of our Saviour's words were 
 made during His earthly life. Further, so long as 
 the Apostles lived, there was no need apparently 
 of any written word concerning Jesus Christ and 
 His Gospel. The early Christians appeared to 
 believe that the Holy Spirit was vouchsafed to 
 these witnesses to lead them into all truth ; they 
 further believed that the end of all things was 
 at hand ; consequently, these two beliefs seemed 
 to make needless the setting up of any written 
 standard of authority. 
 
 The verbal memory was very strong in those
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT 13 
 
 days. Further, the Apostles were accustomed 
 to discourse among themselves of all things that 
 had happened in the ministry of their Lord, 
 and to reiterate to the people the elements of 
 His life and doctrine. 
 
 Their sermons, as we have them recorded in 
 the Book of the Acts, consist of repeated state- 
 ments of the prophecies of the past and of the 
 fulfilment in that day ; and the reiteration of this 
 teaching insured its permanence in the minds of 
 their hearers. 
 
 Yet, soon after the Resurrection and Ascension 
 of the Saviour, and the sudden and increasing 
 import and value of the elements of His life 
 and teaching, various histories, more or less true, 
 more or less correct, began to be promulgated. 
 S. Luke noted this output in order to justify 
 his endeavour to provide an authorised account, 
 "in order," of those sayings and doings. 
 
 Current teaching, embodied in other writings, 
 became associated with certain schools and in- 
 dividuals, centring around S. Matthew, S. Peter, 
 (of whom S. Mark became the exponent), S. 
 Luke (who collected and wrote under the influ- 
 ence of S. Paul), and S. John ( = the Ephesian 
 tradition).
 
 i 4 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 Of course, there can be but one Gospel 
 but there have been revealed unto the Church 
 four different versions. As it is expressed in 
 our Bible, we have this Gospel "according to 
 S. Matthew," and so on. 
 
 Doubtless, each of these Gospel stories grew, 
 as do all similar compilations. Probably the 
 original source is lost on which the first three 
 (or Synoptic) Gospels are founded. S. Mark's 
 is the simplest version. It contains graphic 
 touches, and is mainly occupied with the miracles. 
 
 Justin Martyr (about A.D. 150) records how 
 that " Memoirs of the Apostles " (doubtless the 
 Gospels) and the " Prophets of the Old Testa- 
 ment " were read in the assemblies of the faithful 
 on the Lord's Day. By the end of the second 
 century, the Syriac Version of the New Testa- 
 ment included all the books in our Canon except 
 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, and the Revela- 
 tion ; while, in the West, by this time, all the 
 books found acceptance, except Hebrews, James, 
 and 2 Peter. 
 
 Eusebius, writing about A.D. 325, divides the 
 books of the New Testament into three classes : 
 (a) those universally acknowledged as autho- 
 ritative ; (6) those, the authority of which was
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT 15 
 
 sometimes disputed ; and (c) spurious books. 
 The disputed books were James, Jude, 2 and 
 3 John, Hebrews, and the Revelation. The 
 spurious books were the Gospel of Peter, the 
 Acts of Paul, and various other Gospels and 
 Apocalypses, most of which are now lost. 
 
 It will be observed that the disputed books 
 as might have been expected were mainly 
 the General Epistles, as contrasted with Epistles 
 addressed to particular Churches. 
 
 To bring this part of our subject to a con- 
 clusion, it may be added that the subject was 
 much discussed at many early Church Councils, 
 so that it was not until the third Council of 
 Carthage, in 397, that the Canon of the New 
 Testament was finally settled in its present 
 form. 
 
 Amongst Versions of the Scriptures that 
 emerged at an early date may be noted the 
 Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Gothic, Armenian, and 
 Arabic.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 VARIOUS VERSIONS 
 
 OF the New Testament there exist (roughly 
 speaking) from two to three thousand different 
 MSS., more or less complete, of which con- 
 siderably fewer than a tenth are " uncial," the 
 others being "cursive" (the modern words 
 corresponding to these being " point-hand " and 
 "running-hand"), the uncials being, as a rule, 
 the earliest. 
 
 The printed editions began in 1477, w i tn the 
 Psalter, at Bologna ; other separate portions fol- 
 lowed, and before the end of the century the whole 
 Bible was printed at Soncino, near Cremona. 
 
 All modern Hebrew Bibles are based on Van 
 der Hooght's edition, published at Amsterdam 
 in 1705. 
 
 THE VULGATE 
 
 This important version, in Latin, is due to 
 S. Jerome, and was compiled between A.D. 390 
 and 405, by order of Pope Damasus. The truly 
 great saint and translator above named lived in 
 
 16
 
 VARIOUS VERSIONS 17 
 
 a cave at Bethlehem, and there carried on his 
 biblical work, and also spiritually guided by his 
 letters many inquirers, even in distant parts. 
 He began with the Psalter, of which he left three 
 versions, which are all extant. He then pro- 
 ceeded with the rest of the Bible, and finished 
 it during the last twenty years of the fourth 
 century. By degrees his version superseded the 
 Old Italic (of the same description as the 
 African, British, and Gallican versions). It was 
 revised, under Alcuin, by order of Charlemagne 
 (A.D. 802), and again, under Bellarmine and 
 others, by order of Sixtus V., in 1590, and by 
 Pope Clement in 1592 and 1593. The name 
 " Vulgate " (from vulgatus, published), by which 
 this Bible is known, was originally applied by 
 Jerome himself to the Old Italic (of the begin- 
 ning of the second century), being subsequently 
 gradually transferred to his own work. 
 
 The Vulgate was formally authorised by the 
 Council of Trent in 1546. The existing edi- 
 tion, made under Pope Clement V. in 1593, is 
 the present authorised Bible of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. 1 
 
 1 The last three Roman Pontiffs Pius IX., Leo XIII., and 
 Pius X. have taken action with a view of entrusting to one of the 
 
 B
 
 i8 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 On the invention of printing, the Vulgate was 
 among the first books to come from the press, 
 about 1450. After this edition was supposed 
 to have been lost, a copy of it was found, in 
 the seventeenth century, in the library of Car- 
 dinal Giulio Mazarin at Paris, and is therefore 
 called the Mazarin Bible. About twenty copies 
 are now known, mostly in English libraries. 
 The earliest printed Vulgate is without date, 
 by Gutenberg and Fust, a splendidly bound 
 copy of which, in two volumes, is contained in 
 the library of Eton College ; the first dated 
 (Fust and Scheffer) is of the year 1462. 
 
 most learned of the Religious Orders, viz. the Benedictines, the 
 revision of the text of the Vulgate, as affected by modern dis- 
 coveries of MSS., and by their collation. They have been 
 anticipated in this country by Bishop Wordsworth, of Salisbury, 
 and Professor White, of King's College, London, whose carefully 
 prepared edition is now in course of publication by the Clarendon 
 Press.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 
 
 ENGLISH VERSIONS 
 
 IN discussing the subject of English versions of 
 the Bible, it must be borne in mind that Latin 
 was for centuries the common language of edu- 
 cated men ; that most of those who could read 
 at all could read Latin ; and that those who 
 could read Latin would prefer to read the Scrip- 
 tures in the Vulgate, which had a great reputa- 
 tion, to reading them in any translation into the 
 common tongue. The common idea that the 
 Latin Bible was very little read by the clergy 
 or by the laity in the Middle Ages is suffi- 
 ciently disproved by the way in which mediaeval 
 writings are saturated with biblical allusions, 
 and with phrases taken from all parts of the 
 sacred record. 
 
 We proceed to give a short sketch of the 
 growth of our English Bible.
 
 20 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 About the end of the fourth century S. Chry- 
 sostom says that the Scriptures were read, even 
 in the British Isles ; and that the same faith was 
 learnt as in Constantinople, though in another 
 tongue, which must have been a variant of the 
 Celtic. 
 
 No complete Anglo-Saxon version of the Bible 
 now exists, or probably ever existed. The 
 Venerable Bede (672-735), Bishop Eadfrith of 
 Lindisfarne (d. 721), and King Alfred the Great 
 translated a great part of it, but these versions 
 are lost. Later, Archbishop ^Elfric of Canter- 
 bury (d. 1005) translated the Pentateuch, Joshua, 
 Judges, parts of Kings, Esther, Job, Judith, 
 Maccabees, and the Gospel of Nicodemus. 
 
 Besides these works are two glosses, or Latin 
 with interlinear Anglo-Saxon, known as the 
 Rushworth and Lindisfarne Gospels the former 
 of the ninth century, the latter of the eighth and 
 tenth. There are also metrical versions, such as 
 Caedmon's, in the seventh century, and Bishop 
 Aldhelm's, of Sherborne (d. 709). 
 
 Later, when the language began to change, 
 there seems to have been a version of the Bible 
 in Norman- French, of which fragments remain ; 
 and certain metrical paraphrases, such as the
 
 ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 21 
 
 Ormulum (eleventh century) and the Southear 
 (twelfth century). The Ormulnm, a paraphrase 
 of the Gospels and Acts in the English of 
 Henry II., perhaps never proceeded beyond the 
 original MS. of the author. There is another 
 paraphrase of Scripture of about the same date, 
 under the name of Salus animi (Sowle-hele = 
 soul-heal). 
 
 [Some scholars discriminate between vElfric, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and ^Elfric, the grammarian, Abbot of Peter- 
 borough, and afterwards Archbishop of York. 
 
 The version was in metre, rendering it easier to be learned 
 and remembered. 
 
 The text of the Lindisfarne Gospel is of the eighth century, 
 the gloss of the tenth. The Rushworth Gloss is based on the 
 Lindisfarne Gloss. The latter MS. is lodged in the British 
 Museum, the former in the Bodleian Library.]
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
 THE mediaeval English versions begin with the 
 Psalters of William Shoreham (1320), and of 
 Richard Rolle (d. 1349), both of the first half 
 of the fourteenth century. 
 
 The " Golden Legend," printed by Caxton, 
 amidst much legendary matter, also contains a 
 paraphrase of many portions of both Testa- 
 ments. 
 
 A tract of the earlier fifteenth century speaks 
 of "a Bible in English of northern speech, which 
 seemed to be 200 years old." 
 
 There is some obscurity about the reputed 
 work of John de Trevisa, whose name has been 
 mentioned in connection with the translation of 
 the Scriptures. He was a Fellow of Queen's 
 College, Oxford, Canon of Westbury-on-Trym, 
 and chaplain to the Lords Berkeley (1350- 
 1412). Among his other works he translated
 
 MEDIEVAL PERIOD 23 
 
 Higden's " Polychronicon " ; and Caxton, in the 
 version based on this, which he printed in 1482, 
 is the first to mention his translation of the Bible ; 
 but, in our own day, all that is known of Trevisa's 
 labours in this field are some fragments of the 
 text of the Apocalypse printed by him in Latin 
 and Norman-French on the roof of Berkeley 
 Chapel. 
 
 In respect of English translators of the Scrip- 
 tures, it is fairly certain that John Wycliffe knew 
 nothing of him or of any predecessor. In default, 
 therefore, of this, the earliest version must be 
 considered to be the Wycliffe Bible ; which work 
 was begun by the distinguished rector of Lutter- 
 worth (1320 or '24-84) about 1360, in his Com- 
 mentaries, first on the Revelation, then on the 
 Gospels, translations being added to both works. 
 Shortly afterwards, he translated the rest of the 
 New Testament, and put the whole together in a 
 volume (1380). The Old Testament was begun 
 by Dr. Nicholas de Hereford, Chancellor and 
 Treasurer of Hereford, but not finished ; as the 
 translator, being tried in 1382 for heresy, was 
 excommunicated, and left England to appeal at 
 Rome ; it was finished by Wycliffe himself, a 
 complete English Bible being for the first time
 
 24 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 thus produced. The time was ripe for the setting 
 forth of such a work ripe in every sense, religi- 
 ously, politically, socially. Furthermore, by the 
 middle of the fourteenth century, the English 
 language was beginning to take its fitting place, 
 having attained a high degree of copiousness, 
 vigour, and refinement. Also an English litera- 
 ture was fast coming into existence. 
 
 It must be particularly noted, however, that all 
 other translations hitherto made were from the 
 Vulgate, and not from very good MSS. even of 
 that version. The languages in which the Scrip- 
 tures were originally written, viz. Hebrew and 
 Greek, were but little studied in England at that 
 time, neither were good versions of the same 
 accessible. 1 
 
 The salient features of Wycliffe's translation 
 are: (i) That it was taken entirely from the 
 Vulgate, with assistance from the work of 
 Nicholas de Lyra. England had to wait a cen- 
 tury and a half for the revival of the ancient 
 
 1 Thus, from the nature of the case, Wycliffe's version stands 
 alone, whilst Tyndale's has a noble succession. No portion of 
 the former was printed until 1 848, so that it could be read only in 
 rare and costly MSS. Originally, the price would have been 
 possible but to the few who were wealthy as well as learned being 
 anything from ^40 upwards.
 
 MEDIEVAL PERIOD 25 
 
 learning, which made a new translation from the 
 original languages practicable. (2) Its studied 
 homeliness of style. The reputation of the 
 author, as the leader of a great religious move- 
 ment, gave a wide circulation to the book ; which, 
 in its turn, contributed largely to popularise the 
 religious movement with which its author was 
 connected. 
 
 It was the errors connected with that move- 
 ment, rather than any specific faults in the 
 version, which set the ecclesiastical authorities 
 in motion against the work, and led to the famous 
 Seventh Constitution of Archbishop Arundel (set 
 forth in the provincial synod of Canterbury, 1408), 
 which decreed " that henceforward no unauthor- 
 ised person shall translate any portion of Holy 
 Scripture into English, or any other language, 
 under any form of book or treatise ; neither shall 
 any such book or treatise, or version made either 
 in Wycliffe's time or since, be read either in 
 whole or in part, publicly or privately, under the 
 penalty of the greater excommunication, till the 
 said translation shall be approved either by the 
 bishop of the diocese, or, if necessary, by a pro- 
 vincial council." 
 
 A few years after Wycliffe's death, a revision
 
 26 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 of his work was made by John Purvey, after- 
 wards vicar of West Hythe. 
 
 John Foxe's witness to the circulation of the 
 Wycliffite versions at the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century is well known. ''Some persons," 
 he said, " gave a load of hay for a few chapters 
 of S. Paul." This earnest desire for a verna- 
 cular Bible was subsequently much increased by 
 the production of Luther's monumental German 
 version. 
 
 Owing to the prevalence of foreign and civil 
 wars, and of religious controversy ; to the sub- 
 version of the old social and commercial system, 
 and the establishment of the new ; the conditions 
 immediately subsequent to the death of Wycliffe 
 were unfavourable to the prosecution of religious 
 study, so that the field of English biblical trans- 
 lation lay fallow for a century and a half.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 
 
 OWING to the sack of Constantinople in 1453, the 
 consequent dispersion of Greek scholars, and the 
 determined prosecution of Greek and Hebrew 
 studies which marked the Renaissance period, 
 the universities both English and foreign 
 began to produce men fitted for the work of 
 translation and annotation. Amongst these may 
 be mentioned the Dutchman, Desiderius Eras- 
 mus (1466-1530), whose life is most entertaining, 
 and whose works both of a general character 
 and as bearing on the Greek Testament give 
 him an important niche in the temple of literary 
 fame. He was known to English statesmen and 
 scholars, inasmuch as he visited this country, 
 and was associated with the universities of 
 Oxford and Cambridge. It was wittily said of 
 him that "he laid the egg of the Reformation, 
 and that Luther hatched it." 
 
 William Tyndale next comes upon the scene. 
 
 27
 
 28 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 He was a poor and unknown scholar, his great 
 distinction being that his was the first attempt 
 at an independent translation from the original 
 languages. Moreover, through successive re- 
 visions, our own Bible is derived from his. 
 What greater thing can be said in his praise ! 
 He was born, of good family, at Hunt's Court, 
 Gloucestershire, about 1 490 ; educated partly at 
 Oxford, partly at Cambridge ; ordained priest to 
 the Nunnery of Lambley, Carlisle ; and became 
 a member of the Observant Friary at Greenwich. 
 Engaged as tutor in 1521 to the family of 
 Sir I. Welch in the county of his birth, he 
 became known for his sympathy with the re- 
 forming party, and especially for his advocacy 
 of the popularisation of the Scriptures. Argu- 
 ing, on one occasion, with a divine of the 
 opposite school, he uttered the dictum which has 
 been so often quoted (and misquoted) : "If God 
 give me life and many years, the ploughboys 
 shall know more of the Scriptures than you 
 do." 1 In London he found shelter in the house- 
 
 1 Even as Erasmus said : "It was required to bring the 
 Scriptures home to the business and bosoms of every English- 
 man, that the husbandman might sing parts of them at his plough, 
 the weaver might warble them at his shuttle, the traveller might, 
 with their narratives, beguile the weariness of the way."
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 29 
 
 hold of Humphrey of Monmouth. In the early 
 part of 1524, he sailed for the Continent, never 
 to return to his native land. During the latter 
 years of his life Tyndale lived at Antwerp, and 
 acted as chaplain to the British merchants settled 
 there. After vain attempts to allure him to 
 England within reach of his enemies, a warrant 
 for his apprehension was obtained from the 
 imperial authorities at Brussels by an agent of 
 the British Government, and he was imprisoned 
 for two years at Vilvorde. In spite of the 
 efforts of his friends, he was condemned to 
 death as a heretic, being strangled and burned 
 at the stake in September 1536. What a fate 
 for such a man ! l 
 
 He began with the translation of the New 
 Testament, but finding the work impossible in 
 England, on account of the opposition of Bishop 
 Tunstall, of London, he removed to Hamburg 
 in 1524, where he seems to have published S. 
 Matthew and S. Mark separately. Next, in 
 1525, the whole New Testament came out at 
 
 1 Truly, in many ways, our English Bible was written with the 
 heart's blood of those who compiled it, even the Authorised Version 
 being produced amidst all the intense feeling and excitement of 
 the Gunpowder Plot. When religious feeling is a matter of life and 
 death, men write with a conviction unknown in more leisurely and 
 careless times.
 
 30 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 Cologne, Antwerp, Marburg, and Worms. 1 Some 
 of these translations were revised by his secre- 
 tary, George Joye, Fellow of Peterhouse College 
 (d. 1553). Tyndale then proceeded with the 
 Old Testament, having learned Hebrew for the 
 purpose. He was, however, done to death 
 before its completion, leaving the work, in print 
 or in MS., as far as the end of 2nd Chronicles. 
 But Tyndale's ambition was attained ; even 
 before his death one complete translation came 
 forth, the first ever printed for we have to 
 note that, for more than half a century, the 
 powerful aid of the printing press had now 
 been invoked towards the multiplication of 
 copies. Another issue was preparing, for which 
 the royal licence had been granted. This was 
 a great concession, marking an important ad- 
 vance ; although (in spite of the ban of king 
 and cardinal) many successive versions had been 
 surreptitiously printed and circulated. 
 
 The innovations in his translation were start- 
 ling, and in many places the renderings were 
 justly open to the charge of favouring unorthodox 
 
 1 Besides Erasmus's Greek Testament, Tyndale had also 
 before him the Vulgate and Erasmus's Latin translation of the 
 New Testament. It is said, too, that he used Luther's German 
 Bible.
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 31 
 
 opinions. The prefaces and notes, too, were of 
 such a tone that it is no wonder they were 
 condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities, 
 preached against at S. Paul's Cross, and burnt 
 there by the common hangman. A second 
 edition was bought up by his opponents before 
 it reached England, and was destroyed ; but 
 the money thus derived enabled him to perse- 
 vere in his work. New editions, pirated editions 
 by other printers, and modified editions by other 
 editors, were multiplied. Within the first ten 
 years from its publication, probably as many as 
 fifteen distinct editions, of not fewer than 3000 
 copies each, were printed and introduced secretly 
 into this country, in defiance of the penalties 
 attaching to their sale and possession. 
 
 In 1535 came Coverdale's Bible, translated by 
 Myles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter ; 
 probably under the auspices of Thomas Crom- 
 well. It is suggested that one Jacob van 
 Meteren, of Antwerp, was perhaps the actual 
 translator, and that he employed Coverdale to 
 set forth the new translation. It was printed at 
 Zurich or Antwerp, with a title-page designed by 
 Holbein. 
 
 How far this version was from the original
 
 32 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 tongues is not clear ; the title of the first issue 
 had the words "out of the 'Douche' and the 
 ' Latine ' ; " i.e., roughly speaking, Luther and 
 the Vulgate. It is not improbable, however, that, 
 as time went on, Coverdale added to his know- 
 ledge. At any rate, he continued his work as 
 a painstaking editor. At a later period, he was 
 called in to assist in the preparation of the 
 Genevan version. The 1535 version had a con- 
 siderable sale ; seven distinct editions, with 
 continual amendments, being published between 
 
 1539 and 1541. All the editions have wood-cut 
 borders to title-page. In those of November 
 
 1540 and subsequent dates, the arms of Thomas 
 Cromwell, who was beheaded on July 28, 1540, 
 are obliterated. That Cromwell patronised the 
 undertaking is indicated by its being dedicated to 
 King Henry. Indeed, according to Stevens, a 
 competent authority, this was the Bible alluded 
 to in one of the injunctions issued to the clergy 
 by Cromwell, as Vicar-General, in 1536, ordering 
 that there should be provided " One book of 
 the whole Bible, of the largest volume, in 
 English ; and the same set up in some con- 
 venient place within the said church that ye 
 have care of, whereby your parishioners may
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 33 
 
 most commodiously resort to the same and 
 read it." Truly a momentous order, and one 
 that, with different Versions, has been obeyed 
 almost from that date to the present day. 
 
 The portion of Tyndale's Old Testament which 
 had remained unpublished had come into the 
 hands of his friend, John Rogers, Canon of 
 S. Paul's, afterwards the first martyr under Queen 
 Mary, who, in 1537, published a folio Bible 
 made up of translations by himself, Tyndale, 
 and Coverdale. It was printed partly abroad, 
 and partly in London, for Grafton and Whit- 
 church, the king's printers, and (at Cranmer's 
 request) licensed by Cromwell for general use. 
 The prefaces and notes are boldly in favour 
 of ultra- Reformation views. Questions relating 
 to the name " Matthew's " Bible, applied to 
 this issue, are not easy to determine. Some 
 say that Thomas Matthew was no other than 
 Rogers himself, since no person bearing the 
 name of Matthew emerges in the history of 
 the period, and as Rogers was tried for his 
 life under this alias. 
 
 "Matthew's" Bible was revised in 1539 by 
 Richard Taverner, Canon of Christchurch, Bar- 
 rister-at-Law, and High Sheriff of Oxfordshire ;
 
 34 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 but his work had but a small circulation, and the 
 first edition is now the rarest in our language. 
 
 All the above-mentioned Versions were, so to 
 speak, semi-private and individual ventures. 
 
 Next came the first "Authorised Version" 
 in due time directed "to be used and frequented 
 in every church in the kingdom." Convocation 
 petitioned Henry VIII. to license a translation, 
 and, without delay, Cranmer, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 
 with others, began the important work. The 
 task, however, was not carried out ; and, as 
 before stated, Cromwell commissioned Coverdale 
 to prepare another Bible. This work, called 
 "The Great Bible" from its size (15 inches by 
 19), came out in 1539. It is the text of Matthew 
 revised. In April 1540 a second edition, further 
 revised, was printed in London, with Cranmer's 
 Preface, under his name on the title-page being 
 the significant heading : " Appointed to the use 
 of the Churches." It was reprinted again 
 and again, and was the Authorised Version of 
 the English Church until 1568 the interval 
 occupied by Mary's reign excepted. Some- 
 times it is called " Whitchurch's " Bible, from 
 the name of the printer. Since this no version
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 35 
 
 has been formally authorised by the Crown, nor 
 has any authority save that of the Church been 
 imposed. 
 
 Copies of this issue remain in considerable 
 numbers, one part being perfectly familiar to 
 us, inasmuch as the Prayer-book Psalms and 
 Comfortable Words are derived from it, viz. from 
 the fourth edition of 1541. 
 
 In spite of the authorisation, to which re- 
 ference has been made, we find evidences of 
 failure as far as a popular circulation was con- 
 cerned, for within a few years the men of Devon 
 and Cornwall were in arms by thousands, and 
 there were signs of risings in most parts of 
 England, the attempts to force the Bible 
 amongst the people being used as an excuse 
 to foment rebellion. 
 
 During the check given to the work of re- 
 formation in the reign of Queen Mary, the 
 Protestant exiles at Geneva entered upon the 
 preparation of another version, which was printed 
 by Conrad Badius. Of this, the New Testament 
 was published in 1557, being Tyndale's trans- 
 lation revised on Beza's Latin version, by 
 William Whittingham, brother-in-law of Calvin, 
 who was afterwards, without his having previously
 
 36 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 served as the incumbent of any parish, appointed 
 Dean of Durham. Whittingham's life was a 
 romantic one. He was distinguished as a re- 
 former, a soldier, and a diplomatist. He wrote 
 a work entitled "A Brief Discourse of the 
 Troubles at Frankfort, from 1554 to 1558," which 
 throws considerable light on that exciting period. 
 It was Calvin himself who forced him into the 
 ministry in 1559, in order that he might take 
 charge of the church at Geneva, on Knox's 
 return to Scotland. The whole Bible was put 
 forth in 1560, when the New Testament was 
 again revised; and the latter yet again, in 1576, 
 by Lawrence Tomson, secretary to Sir Thomas 
 Walsingham. It had features of a strongly 
 party complexion, but its notes were really 
 helpful in difficult places, and were spiritual and 
 evangelical in tone. Its circulation was per- 
 mitted in England, and it was dedicated to 
 Elizabeth. 1 
 
 For many reasons this Bible was the most 
 popular that had appeared. It was the first of 
 less than folio size, the first in ordinary Roman 
 
 1 It is interesting to note that this would be the version familiar 
 to Shakespeare and the writers of his immediate period, our 
 Authorised Version appearing but five years before his death. It 
 is uncertain, therefore, whether he ever used a copy.
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 37 
 
 type, 1 the first divided into verses. Thus, it ran 
 into eighty editions, the last being printed as 
 late as 1617. The so-called " Breeches Bible " is 
 nothing but a copy of one of several of those 
 editions, where Genesis iii. 7 reads : " And they 
 sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves 
 breeches" Wycliffe, however, had used the 
 word before; whilst Coverdale had "apurns" 
 i.e. aprons. This was the first English Bible 
 which differentiated the Apocrypha. 
 
 The last-mentioned work being the production 
 of the Puritan party, Archbishop Parker, inspired 
 thereto by Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, resolved 
 on a new translation, which was begun in 1563 
 and published in 1568. By the Puritans it was 
 dubbed "The Bishops' Bible," and, being large and 
 costly, never became popular. It was presented 
 in a magnificent folio, adorned with copper-plate 
 engravings and wood-cuts, and was avowedly 
 based on Cranmer's " Great Bible." Thus, this 
 was the second attempt by the heads of the 
 English Church to translate the Bible for the 
 use of all English-speaking people. It never 
 received any royal recognition, but Convocation, 
 
 1 Roman type was not uniformly employed even after this date 
 E.g., an edition of our Authorised Version was published in quarto 
 black letter in 1613.
 
 3S OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 in 1571, ordered it to be placed by every bishop 
 in the hall or large dining-room of his house, 
 "that it might be useful to servants or to 
 strangers " ; and that it should be set up in 
 each cathedral, and, so far as could conveniently 
 be done, in all the churches. 
 
 Therefore, there were in England, for a while, 
 three versions in common use at the same time 
 Cranmers, or the Great Bible ; the Genevan ; 
 and the Bishops. Three quarto editions of the 
 Great Bible were printed in 1569, and none after 
 that year. No edition of the Bishops' Bible was 
 issued after 1606. 
 
 Next in order of time came the Roman Catholic 
 translation. The New Testament was published 
 at Rheims in 1582, and a second and revised 
 edition at Antwerp, in 1600 ; the Old Testa- 
 ment at Douay, in Flanders, in 1610 ; both 
 being based on the Vulgate, this being the 
 authorised original of the Roman Church. To- 
 gether, these have continued to be the English 
 Bible of the Papal party to the present day. 
 " This Bible was translated for the use of 
 English Romanists. The gigantic task of trans- 
 lating it was accomplished by Gregory Martin, 
 an original scholar of St. John's College, Oxford,
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD 39 
 
 and fellow-student there with Edmund Campion, 
 ' whom he rivalled and kept up with in all the 
 stations of academical learning.' He became a 
 brilliant Hebrew and Greek scholar, but finding 
 himself unable to conform to Protestantism, he 
 escaped to the newly-established English college 
 at Douay, where the founder (Dr. Allen, after- 
 wards cardinal) employed him in teaching 
 Hebrew, and lecturing on the Scriptures. When 
 the college removed to Rheims, he accom- 
 panied it, and there devoted the remainder of 
 his life to this translation of the Bible, dying 
 in 1582, a victim to his constant study and 
 arduous labours. It is sometimes stated that 
 Martin was assisted by Cardinal Allen, Richard 
 Bristow, William Reynolds, and others, but it 
 is established that their part was merely that 
 of revisers, Bristow being responsible for the 
 notes in the first Rheirns Testament of 1582, 
 which was published some twenty-seven years 
 before the Old Testament. Its appearance led 
 to consternation among the Protestant party in 
 England ; it was reviled by their ablest critics, 
 and seized and confiscated by Queen Elizabeth's 
 searchers. Priests found in possession of copies 
 were imprisoned and tortured on the rack, in
 
 40 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 what Burleigh called ' a charitable maner.' And 
 all this from the most zealous advocates of the 
 unlimited right of private judgment ! It was 
 on a copy of the Rheims Testament that Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, desired to pledge her word that 
 she had not conspired against the life of Queen 
 Elizabeth. The request was refused, the Earl 
 of Kent exclaiming that an oath on a Popish 
 Testament was of no value ; which remark, whilst 
 crowning his intolerance, quite degraded his in- 
 telligence. The Douai (or Douay) Bible is a 
 literal translation of the Vulgate, and it is as- 
 serted, by reliable authorities, that Martin's work 
 has left its mark on every page of the labours 
 of James I.'s companies of revisers. In Cardinal 
 Wiseman's opinion, Martin's translation was not 
 improved by Challoner or by later editors." * 
 
 1 Tregaskis, " Bible Catalogue."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OUR "AUTHORISED" VERSION 
 
 THE first motion for our so-called Authorised 
 Version came from Dr. Reynolds, or Rainolds, 
 the spokesman of the Puritan party within the 
 Church, at the Hampton Court Conference, 
 1604. He scrupled at the blemishes of the 
 Bishops' Bible, which was the one sanctioned 
 by authority. At the Conference were seventeen 
 dignitaries of the Church, headed by Arch- 
 bishop Whitgift, and four Presbyterians. King 
 James I. took the matter up with the greatest 
 interest, and is the first king mentioned in the 
 Bible ! viz. in the Preface. He named (doubt- 
 less on the presentation of the universities and 
 other advising bodies) fifty-four learned men to 
 undertake the work. Only forty-seven of them, 
 however, are now known by name. 1 The task 
 really began in 1606, and was carried on 
 
 1 The instructions issued to the translators are to be found in 
 Fuller's History, and (with a more accurate text) in Bishop 
 Burnet's Works. 
 
 41
 
 42 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 simultaneously at Westminster, Oxford, and Cam- 
 bridge, the result of it being put forth in 1 6 1 1 ; 
 but it did not at once supersede former transla- 
 tions. It was left to make its way by its 
 own merits, and thus only gradually superseded 
 others. 
 
 It comes as a shock to biblical scholars of 
 the present day to note that the three oldest 
 MSS. of the Scriptures, viz. the Vatican, the 
 Sinaitic, and the Alexandrian, were not acces- 
 sible to the divines who prepared this version. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the copies in 
 common use are verbatim and literatim reprints ; 
 for, in these respects, a silent and not publicly 
 authorised emendation in spelling, &c. has been 
 gradually going on. The principal editions, by 
 independent scholars, are dated 1616, 1629, 1638, 
 1701, 1762, 1769, 1833, 1873. For an exact 
 representation of the " authorised " standard, 
 recourse must be had to the Oxford facsimile 
 of 1833. 
 
 It was expressly ordered that the Version 
 (which was intended to be the general Bible 
 of the English people) should not be weighted 
 with prefaces and notes which had given a party 
 tone to some previous versions ; still, a number
 
 OUR "AUTHORISED" VERSION 43 
 
 of helps were put into the margin. Some of 
 these, indicated by a letter, were references to 
 parallel texts ; others, indicated by italics, were 
 in the nature of notes ; two-thirds of those in 
 the Old Testament are mere literal renderings 
 of the original Hebrew or Chaldean text ; thirty- 
 five in the New Testament relate to various read- 
 ings in the original Greek text ; others have 
 to do with the translation, and are alternative 
 renderings ; a few are explanations of proper 
 nouns. 
 
 It is interesting to read the Preface to the 
 original edition of 1611, and then to turn to 
 the Preface to what is commonly called the 
 Revised Version. 
 
 The excellences of the Authorised Version 
 are so many and so striking that it is unneces- 
 sary to dwell upon them. Its faults are not 
 peculiar to itself, the imperfections here and there 
 of the divisions into chapters being a legacy 
 from the past. The form of the poetic books 
 is obscured and lost, as is also the case in certain 
 poetical extracts in other books. Job, Psalms, 
 Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, and many 
 passages in the Prophets suffer in this way. 
 Certain passages were accepted which are now
 
 44 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 generally believed to be unsupported by the 
 best MSS. Of course many of the obscurities 
 in the text are due to the subject matter, or 
 to the corruption or mutilation of existing MSS. 
 Certain of these obscurities, however, are cleared 
 up in the Revised Version. 
 
 Few persons would desire that the wording 
 of the translation of such an old-world book 
 as the Bible should be our ordinary, colloquial, 
 work-a-day speech ; and it is to be carefully 
 noted that the English even of the Authorised 
 Version is not that of the time of James I. ; 
 the revisers, according to their instructions, care- 
 fully retaining (wherever possible) the language 
 of the earlier versions, which they had constantly 
 before them. Therefore, it may well be that 
 most of the words placed under List A in this 
 essay might be retained, but that many of those 
 in List B should be changed. Here, in several 
 cases such as the words "let" and "prevent" 
 the common usage to-day has attached a 
 meaning quite diverse from that of the original. 
 Further, such terms as "bottle," " glass " = 
 mirror, "candle," "fat" = vat, might well have 
 been modified to represent more clearly " the 
 thing signified " by these terms in olden days.
 
 OUR "AUTHORISED" VERSION 45 
 
 It should be noted, by way of exception, that 
 Hallam records a brief but emphatic protest 
 against the " enthusiastic praise " which has 
 been lavished on this translation. He is un- 
 doubtedly right if there be considered the 
 arrangement and form in which the matter is 
 set out, particularly in the poetical and pro- 
 phetical books. In many such cases, the meaning 
 is hopelessly obscured. Such a state of things 
 would not have been tolerated in any edition 
 of a classical author.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE REVISED VERSION 
 
 IN February 1870, a resolution in favour of 
 revision of the Authorised Version was passed 
 in the Convocation of Canterbury, and in May, 
 a scheme for the conduct of the revision was 
 drawn up by selected members of that body. 
 
 The task was begun by a committee of fifty- 
 three scholars almost the precise number en- 
 gaged in the production of its popular predecessor. 
 These were nominated by the Southern Convoca- 
 tion of the Church of England the Northern 
 refusing to co-operate. Of the revisers, twenty- 
 seven were engaged on the Old Testament, 
 twenty-six on the New. It should be stated that 
 certain of these were Nonconformists, also that 
 the assistance of American theologians was invited 
 and received. From first to last, ninety-nine of 
 the ablest scholars of the day were engaged in 
 the task of which number, forty-nine belonged 
 to the Church of England.
 
 THE REVISED VERSION 47 
 
 The work began on 22nd June 1870, and ended 
 on nth November 1880, as far as the New 
 Testament was concerned. The latter was pub- 
 lished on 1 7th May 1881. The Old Testament 
 was presented to Convocation on 3Oth April 
 1885, and published on iQth May. Those of us 
 who are old enough can remember the intense 
 interest excited by their publication, both in 
 this country and also across the Atlantic. By 
 Act of Parliament, it is only certain privi- 
 leged bodies who can print the Scriptures in 
 English. 
 
 The new version is not put forth with any formal 
 authority. It is left, as was the so-called Autho- 
 rised Version, to win its way into general 
 acceptance, if it can, by its intrinsic merits. It 
 is too early to anticipate whether it will, like 
 Parker's Bible, only take a place in the series 
 of versions interesting to scholars, or whether 
 (like the Authorised Version) it will slowly live 
 down objections, and become the English Bible 
 of the new era of English Christianity upon which 
 we have entered. 
 
 The R.V. marks a distinct advance in many 
 directions. Ussherian chronological data have 
 gone by the board, as well as the former
 
 48 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 headings, which were frequently misleading. 
 The matter is divided into paragraphs. Greater 
 prominence is given to the fact that certain books 
 are set out in Hebrew metre. Texts are removed 
 which had no sufficient authority, as in i John v., 
 concerning the three heavenly witnesses. One 
 has no sympathy with persons who cavil at such 
 action as this. A consistent equivalent is used 
 for each Hebrew or Greek word although, 
 perhaps, in many cases this is but a doubtful 
 advantage. 
 
 Still, there are specks even in the sun. Thus, 
 it is alleged that the revisers of the New 
 Testament, instead of taking the Greek Textus 
 Rece-btus as the basis of their work, went much 
 further than had been intended in the direction 
 of a new Greek text ; that they had not been 
 selected with a view to the construction of 
 such a text, and were not the scholars most 
 competent for that work ; that, as a fact, in 
 the alterations introduced into the text, they 
 had adopted a novel theory on the subject, and, 
 moreover, had trusted to certain MSS. which 
 did not receive the full adhesion of scholars 
 specially qualified to deal with the question. 
 
 Furthermore, people found that a vast number
 
 THE REVISED VERSION 49 
 
 of alterations had been effected in the Authorised 
 Version especially in the New Testament 1 
 which yet seemed to make very little altera- 
 tion in the sense, and therefore to be an 
 infraction of the principle laid down in their 
 "directions," viz. "to make as few alterations 
 as possible consistent with faithfulness." It is, 
 however, only fair to say that these alterations 
 are explained and defended by the revisers in 
 their Preface. 
 
 In the Old Testament, the Textus Receptus 
 had been adhered to, and fewer alterations made 
 in the translation than in the case of the New 
 Testament. Most of these alterations seem 
 to commend themselves to the acceptance of 
 scholars, yet it is asserted generally that there is 
 a lack of smoothness, of the poetic ring to which 
 one is accustomed in the Authorised Version, 
 and a bald literalness which offends the 
 ear and holds back the sense. Probably it is 
 always the case (more or less) that translators 
 read themselves into their work, and almost 
 unconsciously act as commentators. After the 
 discussions of the past, that was only to be 
 expected in relation to such matters as appertain 
 
 1 Herein, the total reached 36,191 ! 
 
 D
 
 50 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 to the personality of God, the divinity of 
 Jesus as Christ, the procession of the Spirit, 
 the Trinity, the sacred Ministry in its threefold 
 aspect, Inspiration, the Church, Baptism, the 
 Lord's Supper, and the like. 
 
 It has to be remembered that, in the uncials, 
 there is no guide given as to the difference in 
 words marked in our version by difference of 
 type, capitals, and small letters, and divisions 
 between words. Hence occasional difficulty as 
 to the employment of a capital in the name 
 of God. 
 
 Again, reference may be made to such cases 
 as Galatians v. 16, 17, "Walk in the Spirit, and 
 ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. . . . For 
 the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
 against the flesh." In all, the word Spirit is 
 employed eight times in this chapter, and always 
 with a capital. Thus, the Revisers determine 
 that the Spirit of God is invariably meant, and 
 not the spirit of man. But this is more than 
 translation it is comment. 
 
 In the discourse of our Lord to Nicodemus, 
 the same difficulty occurs. The word " Spirit " 
 is employed with a capital thrice and without 
 once. In this case, the difficulty is intensified
 
 THE REVISED VERSION 51 
 
 by the fact that the same Greek word in the 
 passage is occasionally translated by wind. 
 
 Certain important alterations are made where 
 necessity seemed to demand a change. Examples 
 are given below. 
 
 Ruth iv. 14. 
 
 Which hath not left 
 thee this day without 
 a kinsman. 
 
 Job xix. 25. 
 
 For I know that my 
 Redeemer liveth, and 
 that He shall stand at 
 the latter day upon the 
 earth, and though after 
 my skin worms destroy 
 this body, yet in my 
 flesh shall I see God. 
 
 Acts xxvi. 28. 
 
 . . . Without a near 
 kinsman = a redeemer. 
 
 But I know that my 
 Redeemer (or, avenger) 
 liveth, and that He shall 
 stand up at the last upon 
 the earth, and after my 
 skin has been thus de- 
 stroyed, yet from my 
 flesh shall I see God. 1 
 
 Then Agrippa said . . . With but little 
 unto Paul, Almost thou persuasion thou wouldst 
 persuadest me to be a fain make me a Chris- 
 Christian, tian.
 
 52 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 Phil. ii. 6. 
 
 Who, being in the . . . Counted it not 
 
 form of God, thought a prize to be on an 
 
 it not robbery to be equality with God. 
 equal with God. 
 
 Phil. iii. 21. 
 
 Who shall change Who shall fashion 
 our vile body. anew the body of our 
 
 humiliation. 
 
 1 Timothy iii. 16. 
 
 And without con- ... He who was 
 troversy great is the manifested in the flesh, 
 mystery of godliness, justified in the Spirit. 
 God was manifest in 
 the flesh, justified in 
 the Spirit. 
 
 2 Timothy iii. 16. 
 
 All Scripture is given Every Scripture in- 
 by inspiration of God. spired of God is also 
 
 profitable in teaching.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PLEA FOR FURTHER REVISION 
 
 Addressed by the Author to " The Guardian? 
 2nd September 1910 
 
 " THE impending celebration of the tercentenary 
 of the Authorised Version and of the fortieth 
 year of the commencement of work upon the 
 Revised Version would seem to be an appro- 
 priate occasion for calling attention to the neces- 
 sity for a further revision. This agitation might 
 also tend to accelerate and benefit any revision 
 of the Prayer-book, which, as your pages testify, 
 is now a matter of earnest discussion. 
 
 " Hundreds of ancient MSS. some of first- 
 rate importance have been discovered, collated, 
 and commented upon since 1611. Even since 
 1880 a significant advance in this respect has 
 been made. The knowledge of the structure 
 of ancient languages and of our own has also 
 enormously increased. The critical faculty, too, 
 
 53
 
 54 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 of scholars has become intensified. The in- 
 vestigations of historians, explorers, and biolo- 
 gists have penetrated into subjects affecting 
 ethnology, archaeology, and the life and history 
 of countries and peoples such as the Hebrews, 
 Akkadians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, 
 Persians, Hittites, Cretans, Greeks, and Romans. 
 Whilst acknowledging the supreme value of the 
 Authorised Version in respect of diction, felicity 
 of expression, poetry of cadence, its best friends 
 cannot be blind to its faults, its arbitrary divi- 
 sions, its many mistranslations, obscurities, mis- 
 leading archaisms, the unconscious bias of the 
 translators in favour of the then unchallenged 
 authority of certain popular doctrines. The 
 Revised Version, especially the New Testament 
 portion, has come in for still more strenuous 
 criticism, in spite of the conscientiousness, learn- 
 ing, and acumen displayed by its compilers, its 
 more effective form, its greater scientific and 
 literal correctness. The latter quality commends 
 itself to our critical judgment, whilst its wide 
 and often unnecessary departure from the style 
 and diction of the Authorised Version offends 
 the poetic sense in its boldness; literality being 
 sometimes less informing therefore less true to
 
 PLEA FOR FURTHER REVISION 55 
 
 the original than the sweeping paraphrases of 
 the Authorised Version. 
 
 " Hence the time would appear to be ripe 
 for a further revision. In 1907, at the Canter- 
 bury Diocesan Conference, in the course of a 
 paper dealing with the Higher Criticism, I ven- 
 tured to ask : ' Is it not time that the Church 
 of Christ determined that a body be constituted 
 which, during the next ten years or so, should 
 accumulate the necessary store of material to 
 enable it to give to the world, in its most 
 correct form, the priceless treasure of the Book 
 which contains the Word of God to man? Is 
 it too much to expect that the initiative be taken 
 at this Conference? It is interesting to note, 
 in connection with this part of the subject, that 
 the most conservative institution in the world is 
 moving in the sense advocated in these pages, 
 and that the last two Roman Pontiffs have taken 
 action with a view of entrusting the revision 
 of the Vulgate to one of the most learned of 
 the religious Orders viz. the Benedictines.' 
 The matter was not followed up at the Con- 
 ference, and it is evident that the Convocations 
 and authorities of our Church will not take action 
 at the instance of an isolated suggestion, but
 
 56 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 that they will hang back until a strong, united, 
 public demand is made. In this connection it 
 is significant to note that the Northern Convo- 
 cation refused to co-operate with the Southern 
 in the preparation of the present Revised 
 Version. 
 
 " I appeal to you, sir, to put forth your great 
 influence in order to ascertain the trend and 
 strength of public opinion, yea, even to go 
 further, and to stimulate opinion in what I con- 
 ceive to be the true sense. The supreme im- 
 portance to the Christian and Jewish Churches, 
 indeed, to the world at large in a religious, 
 even in a literary, an artistic, and educational 
 sense cannot be overstated. Naturally, certain 
 objections may be raised, (a) There is a large 
 class which disparages all change simply because 
 it is change. (&) Many good people are con-^ 
 tent with the Authorised Version, and depre- 
 cate any alteration of renderings which are 
 sacred in their eyes by reason of tradition and 
 long use. Indeed, persons are found who even 
 prefer a manifestly wrong rendering to a right 
 because it the better fits in with their theological 
 system, (c) Some individuals would allege that 
 we have at the present day no biblical scholars
 
 PLEA FOR FURTHER REVISION 57 
 
 like unto the giants of old Westcott, Hort, 
 Lightfoot, &c. It is always difficult to appraise 
 the scholarship of living men, some of them 
 comparatively young, the knowledge of whose 
 work and reputation may be confined, at first, 
 to a narrow circle of acquaintance ; but it can 
 hardly be doubted that both here and in America 
 a sufficient number of scholars could be found 
 to carry the work to a triumphant conclusion. 
 The illustrious men above mentioned have left 
 to the Church a legacy of untold value. They 
 laboured, and we have entered into their labours. 
 (d) Some critics assert that it would cause con- 
 fusion to introduce another version. This dis- 
 claimer could have been made when any advance 
 whatsoever was advocated. If it had obtained, 
 we should have been now, mayhap, in full pos- 
 session of the Vulgate, and of that alone. Our 
 forefathers in the Reformation period reasoned 
 not in this fashion. One example is ready to 
 our hand. The Geneva Bible (of which the 
 New Testament portion was first published in 
 1557 and the whole Bible in 1560) was for 
 many reasons the most popular version that had 
 appeared. Thus it was printed in as many as 
 eighty editions the point of which is that many
 
 58 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 of these varied from the original and as late 
 as 1617. Indeed, our so-called Authorised Ver- 
 sion for it was not at first formally authorised 
 by the authority of the Church did not at once 
 supersede former translations. The Bishops' 
 Bible, it is true, was not printed, as a whole, 
 after 1606, but the New Testament appeared as 
 late as 1618. (e) Finally, there is expressed the 
 fear that one revision would lead to another, and 
 so on in a long series. This would unquestionably 
 be the case. It is not only unavoidable, but 
 desirable ; for the call of the twentieth century 
 is upon us, and this call and spirit intensifying, 
 as they assuredly will, in the future, in accord- 
 ance with the greater desire for scientific exact- 
 ness in all directions, including the biblical 
 demand successive revisions every half-century 
 or so, in order that the Church may be enabled 
 to keep pace with the world in its general 
 advance, through making use of fresh facts and 
 more matured learning." 1 
 
 1 The ownership of the copyright of the Revised Version, and 
 the exclusive authority to print the Bible, might present a difficulty 
 which, however, ought not to be insuperable. 
 
 The Americans were not permitted to bring out any revision of 
 their own for fourteen years, but they published a Revise of the 
 Revised as soon as they legally could.
 
 PLEA FOR FURTHER REVISION 59 
 
 SUGGESTIONS 
 
 There is room for improvement in the form in 
 which the matter is presented. Of course, the 
 paragraphical division would be retained, with 
 larger breaks between paragraphs, especially in 
 the prophetical writings, where the subjects ap- 
 pear to be diverse, and a suggestion is justified 
 that a lapse of time occurred between deliver- 
 ances now placed consecutively. There seems 
 little doubt that these utterances are largely the 
 product of a school of prophetic thought, spread 
 over a number of years, according to the occa- 
 sion and degree of prophetic vision and instinct 
 enjoyed. 
 
 Discourses should be always inset, or put 
 between quotation marks. The Divine words 
 and the discourses of our Lord should also be 
 put into thick type. It may be alleged that 
 this is impracticable, and that it is sometimes 
 impossible to discriminate in the Gospels, for 
 instance between what is text and what is 
 comment by the evangelists ; but in this case, 
 again, a difference of type might be used. 
 
 Would it not be possible to make some 
 attempt to place the writings of the New
 
 60 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 Testament, at all events, in chronological order ? 
 It is an important fact, of far-reaching import- 
 ance to realise, that all the writings of S. Paul 
 (adopting the orthodox view as to their genuine- 
 ness and authenticity) were probably published 
 before even one of our Gospels was made public 
 in its present form. It is improbable that any 
 specific records of our Lord's life and ministry 
 were put forth before the Ascension. Even 
 after that event, implicit trust was placed by 
 the Church upon His apostles and near disciples. 
 Hence, fragments of His words and of the 
 records of His deeds were set down by dif- 
 ferent people at different times, in different 
 languages, in diverse methods, on different 
 material. Out of this collection, the Evangelists, 
 whose work has survived, selected what suited 
 their purpose, and rearranged it by continual 
 adaptation until it finally reached its present 
 form, at later dates probably than those com- 
 monly assigned. However, the point one wishes 
 to make is this that whilst S. Paul did not see 
 the finished work of any of the Evangelists, on 
 the other hand, each of these had had the oppor- 
 tunity of perusing the whole of his writings. It 
 is an interesting speculation how far that fact, and
 
 PLEA FOR FURTHER REVISION 61 
 
 the influence brought to bear upon their minds by 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, modified the work 
 of the Evangelists in its lengthening course. 
 One would hardly suggest that the books of 
 the New Testament should be arranged so that 
 the Epistles of S. Paul should stand first ; but 
 the fact that they or the Epistle of S. James 
 actually came first in time should be impressed 
 upon the mind of every reader by the provision 
 of a chronological index.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DIVERS FACTS 
 
 PRIVATE translations of the whole Bible have 
 been made by Purver, a Quaker, 1764; Macrae, 
 1 799 ; Bellamy, 1 8 1 8 ; and (more lately) by Sharpe. 
 Of the New Testament alone, there have been 
 versions by Alford, Highton, Maclellan, Moulton, 
 and others. 
 
 Wycliffe, besides his own Prologue (though 
 this was properly Purvey's), added a transla- 
 tion of Jerome's Introduction. He gives also 
 marginal, or textual, notes. Tyndale has his 
 Prologues to separate books, and copious notes. 
 
 Coverdale puts his chapter-headings all to- 
 gether. 
 
 Matthew employed a marginal commentary, 
 which Taverner somewhat abridged. 
 
 The Geneva Bible has "arguments" to each 
 book, as well as chapter-headings and marginal 
 notes ; these last are, in many cases, strongly 
 dogmatic ; as also, though to a less degree, are
 
 DIVERS FACTS 63 
 
 those of the Bishops' Bible. All this apparatus 
 was swept away at the last revision, by King 
 James's express desire, and what remains is the 
 noble Preface by Miles Smith, Bishop of Glou- 
 cester (d. 1624); the headings of chapter and 
 column ; the marginal references with dates ; 
 and a few explanatory notes. 
 
 The division into our modern chapters was 
 introduced into the Vulgate, about the middle 
 of the thirteenth century, by Cardinal Hugh de 
 St. Cher. With less reason, the attribution has 
 been made to Archbishop Lanfranc (1005-1089), 
 and to Archbishop Langton (1163-1228). The 
 modern verse-division was introduced first by 
 Rabbi Nathan into the Hebrew Bible about 
 1445, an d finished by Athias, a Jew, in 1662. 
 In 1528 it was extended to the New Testament 
 by Sanctes Paquinus, in his Latin version. 
 These verses, however, were of somewhat 
 greater length than those now known ; Robert 
 Stephens, or Estienne, the celebrated French 
 printer, bringing the division into the modern 
 shape in 1548 and I55I 1 the Geneva Bible, 
 
 1 It is said that he executed the work during a hurried coach- 
 journey from Paris to Lyons a fact which may be held to account 
 for the irregularities occasionally perceptible.
 
 64 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 1560, being the first English Bible completely 
 arranged with chapter and verse as at present 
 found. Paragraph divisions appeared in the 
 version of 1611. Ina modified form, they have 
 been adopted successively in the Revised New 
 and the Revised Old Testament. 
 
 Italicised words, representing those not directly 
 represented in the original languages, were first 
 employed by Sebastian Munster, in his Latin 
 version, 1534, and were afterwards used by the 
 editors of the "Authorised Bible" of 1539. 
 
 The dates in the margin are from the Annales 
 Veteris et Novi Testamentorum of Archbishop 
 Ussher, of Armagh (1650-1654), being first in- 
 serted by Bishop Lloyd in 1701. 
 
 Specimens of successive translations will be 
 found in Cassell's " Bible Educator," iv., 378, 379. 
 
 CURIOUS BLUNDERS 
 
 An edition published in 1653 reads as to 
 i Cor. vi. 9 : " Know ye not that the un- 
 righteous shall inherit the kingdom of God ? " 
 
 The Printers Bible puts into David's mouth 
 in Ps. cxix. 161 : '''Printers have persecuted 
 me without a cause." 
 
 The Vinegar Bible. (Printed at the Clarendon
 
 DIVERS FACTS 65 
 
 Press, in 1717.) So called because the heading 
 to S. Luke xx. is given as " the parable of 
 the vinegar." 
 
 The He Bible. The rare issue of the first 
 edition of the Authorised Version from the 
 "He" reading in Ruth iii. 15. 
 
 The Wicked Bible. (Printed by Barker and 
 Lucas, 1632.) So called because the word not 
 is omitted from the Seventh Commandment. 
 (As a punishment for this error, the printers were 
 fined ^300, and the edition was suppressed.) 
 
 The Bugge, or Bug, Bible. Ps. xci. 5 : 
 " Thou shalt not need to be afraid for any bugges 
 by night." 
 
 The Treacle Bible. The first edition of the 
 Bishops' Bible. Referring to the use of the 
 word treacle instead of balm in Jeremiah viii. 
 22 : "Is there no balm in Gilead ; is there 
 no physician there ? " (In the notes of this 
 Bible, at Psalm xlv. 9, there is a reference to 
 Christopher Columbus in relation to Ophir!) 
 
 The Leda Bible, from a wood-cut of Leda and 
 the Swan, one of a series originally designed for 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses ! 
 
 The Judas Bible (1610); from the reading of 
 John vi. 67, " Then said Judas to the twelve."
 
 66 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 The Ye Bible. Acts vi. 3, ye for we. (The 
 corrected Bible issued by order of Charles I.) 
 
 The Thy Bible, i Timothy iv. 16, "and thy 
 doctrine," instead of the. (Authorised Version 
 printed by Roger Daniel, 1654.) 
 
 The Caperberry Bible. A term applied by 
 certain critics to the Revised Version, owing to 
 the use of the word caperberry in Ecclesiastes 
 xii. 6 : " And the almond tree shall blossom, 
 and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and the 
 caperberry shall fail," instead of " and desire shall 
 fail " (Authorised Version).
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 
 
 B.C. 1500150 Period during which the Old 
 Testament Scriptures were com- 
 piled : 
 
 (a) From oral tradition. 
 
 (b) From original writing. 
 
 (c} From chronicles and records 
 of kings and priests. 
 
 The originals have long since 
 disappeared. 
 
 The MS. Bible in the Cambridge 
 University Library is said to date 
 from A.D. 856 ; and other copies of 
 different books on the Continent 
 may date from 843 to 916. 
 
 The printed editions began in 
 1477, with the Psalter, at Bologna. 
 
 Begun B.C. 280 Septuagint, or Version of the 
 Seventy from an old tradition of 
 its having been prepared by seventy 
 
 67
 
 68 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 learned Jews of Alexandria. It 
 was put forth during the reign of 
 Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, King of 
 Egypt (288-247 B - c -)- 
 
 Targums = the Chaldee Para- 
 phrases of the Old Testament. 
 
 B.C. 700-160 Period during which our Apo- 
 crypha (Biblia Apocrypha = Hidden 
 or Secret Books) was compiled. 
 
 Perhaps the Book of Tobit comes 
 first. The dates assigned vary 
 from 734 to 350 B.C. Nothing is 
 known as to the author, and there 
 is uncertainty even as to the lan- 
 guage in which it was originally 
 written. Much the same doubts 
 apply to the other books. The 
 Maccabees are the latest coming 
 down to 130 B.C. 
 
 The apocryphal books were not 
 included in the Jewish Canon. 
 They were rejected at the Council 
 of Laodicea (A.D. 363), but were 
 received as canonical by the Roman 
 Church at the Council of Trent, 
 1 546. (The two books of Esdras
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 69 
 
 and the Prayer of Manasses were 
 printed after the New Testament.) 
 The Apocrypha 1 forms part of 
 the Septuagint. These books were 
 first separated from the collections 
 in which they had always previ- 
 ously appeared in Greek and Latin 
 Bibles by Coverdale in his English 
 Bible of 1535. They were in- 
 cluded in the Genevan Bible of 
 1 560 ; but differentiated, as re- 
 gards authoritative value, from the 
 rest of the Old Testament. They 
 are retained in the Bibles of the 
 Churches of the East, of Russia, 
 and of Greece. 
 
 A.D. 50-100 Period during which the New 
 Testament Scriptures were elabo- 
 rated : 
 
 (a) Out of fugitive records. 
 
 (b) Out of original writing. 
 
 (c) From letters to churches and 
 individuals. 
 
 1 The earliest use of this word in English is in the preface to 
 Wycliffe's Bible, which says that S. Jerome had declared of the 
 Third and Fourth Books of Esdras, that they " ben apocrifa, that 
 is, not of autoritie of bileue."
 
 70 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 B.C. 457-432 Establishment of the Canon of 
 the Old Testament (canonical = 
 admitted by the rule). Popular 
 belief assigned to Ezra and " the 
 Great Synagogue " the task of col- 
 lecting and promulgating the Scrip- 
 tures, as part of their work in 
 reorganising the Jewish Church. 
 
 A.D. 397 . . Establishment of the Canon of 
 the New Testament. This was a 
 long and anxious business ; but the 
 complete Canon, as commonly re- 
 ceived at present, was ratified at 
 the Third Council of Carthage. 
 
 Muratorian Fragment. 
 
 170 
 
 Early in 2nd 
 
 cent . . . 
 
 c. 81-96 . . 
 
 Epistle of Barnabas. 
 
 (Rom. 
 
 . Epistle of Clement. 
 
 Doubtful date " Shepherd of Hernias 
 xvi. 14). 
 
 A.D. 27-107 . Epistle of Ignatius. 
 d. 202 . . Epistle of Irenaeus. 
 ^.163 . . Apology by Justin Martyr (151).
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 71 
 
 A.D. 185-254 . The Hexapla of Origen. 
 
 ,, 300-450 . Range of dates of the following 
 MSS. : 
 
 (B.) Vaticanus (lodged in the 
 Vatican, 1450), early part of the 
 fourth century. 
 
 (Aleph) Sinaiticus (lodged in 
 Library at St. Petersburg, 1859), 
 second half of the fourth century. 
 
 (A.) Alexandrinus (lodged in 
 British Museum, 1625), early part 
 of the fifth century. 
 
 (C.) Codex Ephraemi (Paris, 
 1533), early part of the fifth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 (D.) Codex Bezae (Cambridge, 
 1581), early part of the sixth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 Syriac Version. 
 
 Coptic Version. 
 
 Ethiopic Version. 
 
 Armenian Version. 
 
 Samaritan Version. 
 
 Latin Version. 
 
 There are indications that the 
 ancient British Church had a Latin
 
 72 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 version of the Bible founded on 
 the Old Latin, and different from 
 the Vulgate, being peculiar to itself ; 
 but the Bible of the Saxon Church, 
 as of all the West, was the Vulgate. 
 A.D. 350 . . Version of Ulfilas, Bishop of the 
 Goths. 
 
 ,, 150-250 . African, Gallican, Old Italic, and 
 Old Latin versions. 
 
 The introduction of the Vulgate : 
 
 ,, 385 . . New Testament portion. 
 
 ,, 392 . . Old Testament portion. 
 
 c. 680 . . Caedmon, the Monk of Whitby, 
 
 wrote the " Hymn on Creation." 
 
 d. 709 . . Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, 
 
 worked in Glastonbury Abbey, 
 translating the Psalms into Anglo- 
 Saxon. 
 
 About the same time, Egbert, 
 Bishop of Holy Island, prepared 
 a version of the Gospels, of which 
 a copy is still preserved in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 d. 735 . . The Venerable Bede, of J arrow, 
 translated parts of the Scriptures.
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 73 
 
 A.D. 849-901 . King Alfred the Great translated 
 fragments of the Psalms and of the 
 Gospels. 
 
 ,, 1023 ? . Archbishop ALlfric wrote "Epi- 
 tome of Scripture History," with 
 a translation of many parts of the 
 historical books. 
 
 9th& lothcent. The Rush worth and Lindis- 
 farne Gospels. These are Latin 
 Gospels and Psalms with an in- 
 terlinear Saxon translation. 
 
 Long pause due to Danish and 
 Norman invasions. 
 
 1 2th cent. . . The " Ormulum " a paraphrase 
 of the Gospels and Acts, in the 
 English of Henry II. 
 
 ,, ,, " Salus Animi," another para- 
 
 phrase of Scripture of about the 
 same date. 
 
 A.D. 1260 . . Norman-French translation of 
 the whole Bible. 
 
 1 3th cent. . . A translation of the Psalms in 
 verse.
 
 74 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 A.D. 1320 . . Shoreham (Vicar of Chart 
 Sutton, Staplehurst). A prose 
 translation of the Psalms. 
 
 d. 1349 . . Richard Rolle, chantry priest 
 of Hampole (now Humphall, near 
 Doncaster). A translation of the 
 Psalms, Gospels, and Epistles. 
 
 A.D. 1350-1412 John de Trevisa, a Cornish 
 divine, Fellow of Queen's College, 
 Oxford. There is considerable 
 doubt as to the extent of his 
 work, but there is no doubt that 
 he translated many parts of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 ,, 1324-1384 John Wycliffe completed the 
 New Testament in 1380 the Old 
 Testament (with help) in 1383. A 
 complete version of the Scriptures 
 in the language of the people- 
 taken from the Latin Vulgate of 
 Eusebius Hieronymus, commonly 
 called S. Jerome. Wycliffe was 
 not capable of consulting the ori- 
 ginal Greek and Hebrew. About 
 half of the translation of the Old
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 75 
 
 Testament is ascribed to Nicholas 
 de Lyra or Hereford, one of the Ox- 
 ford leaders of the Lollards ; the re- 
 mainder, with the whole of the New 
 Testament, being done by Wycliffe. 
 About 170 copies of this Bible re- 
 main. 
 
 c. 1391 . . . Richard Purvey. 
 
 About eight years after the 
 completion of Wycliffe's Bible, 
 the whole was again revised by 
 Purvey, Wycliffe's curate and inti- 
 mate friend. 
 
 It was extensively copied up to 
 about 1450. 
 
 A.D. 1450 . . The first completed book is- 
 sued from Gutenberg's (Johann 
 Gensfleisch's) press in Mentz was the 
 Latin Bible, now styled the Mazarin 
 Bible, because a copy of it was 
 found about a century ago in the 
 library in Paris of the cardinal of 
 that name. 
 
 A.D. 1480 . . Coburger of Nuremberg, and 
 probably other continental printers,
 
 76 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 had established warehouses in Lon- 
 don for the sale of Latin Bibles as 
 early as 1480, and perhaps earlier. 
 A.D. 1483 . . The " Golden Legend," printed 
 by Caxton (amidst much legendary 
 matter), contains a paraphrase of 
 many portions of the Old and New 
 Testaments. 
 
 1500 . . About this time printers began 
 the practice of numbering pages, 
 of using capital letters, and of 
 preparing a title-page. 
 
 ,, 1516 . . Erasmus's Greek Testament. 
 
 ,, 1517-1522 Complutensian (from the town 
 named Complutense, now Alcala) 
 Polyglot Bible (Hebrew, Chaldee, 
 Greek, Latin). 
 
 ,, 1522-1534 Dr. Martin Luther's Bible. 
 During his stay on the Wartburg, 
 he had begun the translation of 
 the New Testament, which was 
 published in the autumn of 1522. 
 A translation of the Old Testament 
 followed somewhat later, being 
 completed in 1534. The whole
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 77 
 
 is still in use among the German 
 people in a form but slightly 
 revised. It is mentioned in this 
 connection because it was con- 
 sulted by Coverdale and others 
 in the preparation of English 
 versions. 
 
 A.D. 1529 . . Bishop Latimer preached his 
 celebrated sermons "On the Card," 
 arguing in favour of the translation 
 and universal reading of Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 1484-1536 William Tyndale. 
 
 Friar Joye corrected proofs, and 
 revised translations for Tyndale 
 
 (1533)- 
 
 Tyndale went back to the Hebrew 
 
 and the Greek. The New Testa- 
 ment was the work to which he 
 chiefly devoted himself. Of the 
 Old Testament, he translated only 
 the Pentateuch (1530), the histori- 
 cal books, and part of the Prophets 
 (1534). The margin of his work 
 contains a running comment^on the
 
 78 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 text. His first New Testament 
 (1525) was revised by himself in 
 1534, and again in 1535. 
 
 A.D. 1535 . . The Bible ("Treacle") of Myles 
 Coverdale, a friar of the Augustine 
 Convent in Cambridge, afterwards 
 Bishop of Exeter ; the man who, 
 after Tyndale, played the most 
 prominent part of any in the his- 
 tory of the English Bible. Pro- 
 bably he was associated with Jacob 
 van Meteren, of Antwerp. His 
 work is said to be translated out 
 of " Douche " and Latin into Eng- 
 lish ; i.e., roughly speaking, from 
 Luther and the Vulgate, with the 
 help of "five sundry interpreters," 
 i.e. translators. The chief of these 
 "interpreters" is evidently Tyn- 
 dale, whom (in the New Testa- 
 ment especially) Coverdale closely 
 follows. Other editions were pub- 
 lished in 1537, 1550, 1553. 
 
 A.D. 1537 . . Thomas Matthew's Bible really 
 > *539 prepared by John Rogers, Canon
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 79 
 
 A.D. 1549 of St. Paul's, a friend of Tyn- 
 ,, 1551 dale's, and the first Marian martyr. 
 This work was Tyndale's transla- 
 tion, pure and simple, with the 
 exception of the latter half of the 
 Old Testament, which is taken, 
 with some alterations, from Cover- 
 dale's Bible. It contained those 
 strong anti -papal notes by which 
 Tyndale's version gave such offence 
 to the authorities. In the edition 
 of 1539, the prefaces were sup- 
 pressed, and the notes systemati- 
 cally toned down. 
 
 ,, 1539 . . Another translation appeared by 
 Richard Taverner, one of the 
 Canons of Wolsey's new College 
 of Christ Church, Oxford, Barrister- 
 at- Law, and High Sheriff of Oxford- 
 shire. He was a somewhat wary 
 Reformer, who managed to steer a 
 safe course through the turbulent 
 reigns of Henry VIII. and his suc- 
 cessors, making only one indelicate 
 slip in reference to the condition 
 of Henry's fourth queen, which
 
 8o OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 landed him in the Tower for a 
 time. His work was little more 
 than an edition of Matthew's with 
 its more violent polemical notes 
 toned down or omitted. Some of 
 the renderings are vigorous and 
 idiomatic. The work had very 
 little circulation, and was but once 
 reprinted. 
 
 A.D. 1539 . . The Great Bible (19 inches by 
 15 inches), the first English Autho- 
 rised Version, begun by Cranmer 
 and Gardiner. Myles Coverdale 
 was selected to take charge of the 
 work. It was a compilation from 
 Matthew's and Coverdale's Bibles ; 
 or, rather, a revision of Matthew's 
 by Coverdale. As has been said, 
 Matthew's Bible was almost en- 
 tirely Tyndale's version. This 
 " Great Bible " was formally autho- 
 rised "to be used and frequented " 
 in every church in the kingdom. 1 
 
 1 There was ordered to be bound up with it, and chained to the 
 same desk, Erasmus's Paraphrase. Other works or material bound 
 up with Bibles of the time, or of later date, intended for general
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 81 
 
 From the fourth edition (1541) 
 are taken the Psalms in our Book 
 of Common Prayer, and the "Com- 
 fortable Words " in the Communion 
 Service. It indicated as doubtful, 
 by printing them in small type, 
 certain texts, such as i John v. 
 7, 8. A revised edition was put 
 forth in London in 1540 the first 
 edition having been printed in 
 Paris. Three quarto editions were 
 printed in 1569, but none after 
 that date. 
 
 The plan of employing italicised 
 words to indicate interpolations 
 necessary to make sense is be- 
 lieved to have been first employed 
 by Sebastian Munster in his Latin 
 version of 1534, and was borrowed 
 from him for use in this Bible. 
 It descended to the Authorised 
 Version of 1611 through the Gene- 
 van and the Bishops' Bibles. 
 
 circulation, include Prefaces, Prologues, Dedications, Glosses, 
 References, Concordances, and Sternhold and Hopkins's metrical 
 version of the Psalms, with music. 
 
 F
 
 82 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 A.D. 1540 . . Sir John Cheke, M.A., St. John's 
 College, Cambridge, Regius Pro- 
 fessor of Greek, translated S. 
 Matthew and a few verses of 
 S. Mark. 
 
 ,, 1545-1563 Council of Trent. 
 
 ,, 1548 . . Erasmus's Paraphrase, translated 
 by Nicholas Udall and Myles 
 Coverdale. The text accompany- 
 ing the Paraphrase is chiefly that 
 of the "Great Bible." It was 
 appointed by royal authority to 
 be placed in all the churches, so 
 that people might have an oppor- 
 tunity of reading it. 
 
 ,, 1557-1560 The Genevan Version the 
 " Breeches " Bible (Gen. iii. 7). 
 
 (It was really only one edition, 
 published by Barker, that contained 
 this reading, which, however, was 
 also the reading of Wycliffe's Bible.) 
 
 The Reformers who had fled to 
 Geneva during Mary's reign re- 
 turned at the death of the queen 
 (Coverdale being one of them),
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 83 
 
 bearing with them a new ver- 
 sion of the Bible, the work of the 
 best years of their banishment, 
 the dedication of which was ac- 
 cepted by Elizabeth. The New 
 Testament, translated by Whit- 
 tingham, was printed at Geneva 
 by Conrad Badius, in 1557. The 
 whole Bible was published in 1560, 
 when the New Testament was again 
 revised ; a further revision being 
 made in 1576 by Lawrence Tomson. 
 It was the most popular Bible 
 that had ever appeared in England, 
 and for sixty years it held its own 
 against all rivals, for a time even 
 contesting the ground with the 
 (so-called) Authorised Version of 
 1611. It was reprinted as late as 
 1617. It was cheaper and less 
 cumbrous than the " Great Bible " 
 of Cranmer of 1539 ; it was a more 
 careful and accurate work ; it was 
 more of a revision than a translation, 
 being chiefly based on Tyndale ; 
 it contained marginal notes of a
 
 84 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 strongly Calvinistic tendency ; it 
 was the first Bible that laid aside 
 the old black letter for the present 
 roman type ; it was the first Eng- 
 lish Bible completely arranged with 
 chapter and verse as they are at 
 present seen ; and the first to 
 differentiate the Apocrypha. It 
 deletes the name of S. Paul from 
 the heading of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. It uses italics for all 
 words not occurring in the ori- 
 ginal. 
 
 A.D. 1563-1568 The Bishops' Bible (so styled 
 by the Puritan party), brought 
 out by Archbishop Parker, aided 
 by eight bishops and several deans 
 and professors. 
 
 This Bible was magnificently got 
 up, but it proved to be an inferior 
 version, which neither commanded 
 the respect of scholars nor suited 
 the wants of the people. It was 
 based on Cranmer's " Great Bible," 
 and was begun in 1563. No edi- 
 tion was issued after 1606.
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 85 
 
 A.D. 1582-1600 Romish Version of the New Tes-. 
 tament put forth by the English 
 College at Rheims. A second 
 and revised edition printed at 
 Antwerp. 
 
 ,, 1609-1610 The Old Testament issued by 
 the English College at Douay. 
 Together, these have continued to 
 be the English Bible of the Papal 
 party to the present time. It was 
 revised in 1750 and 1791. A 
 scheme is now on foot to purify 
 the text of the Vulgate, on which 
 this (so-called) Douay Version is 
 based. 
 
 ,, 1569-1572 The Antwerp Polyglot. 
 ,, 1640-1645 The Paris Polyglot. 
 ,, 1654-1657 The London Polyglot. 
 
 (Copies of the four Polyglots can 
 be seen at the Bible House.) 
 
 Jan. 1604 . . A conference was held in the 
 drawing-room of Hampton Court 
 Palace, under the presidency of 
 James I. (himself no mean theo- 
 logical scholar), to consider certain
 
 86 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 alleged grievances of the Puritan 
 party within the Church. Among 
 other subjects of discussion, was 
 brought up (somewhat unexpect- 
 edly) the defectiveness of the two 
 current translations of Scripture, 
 (the Bishops' Bible and the Gene- 
 van). Chiefly owing to the insist- 
 ence of the king, a revision was 
 determined upon, which was finally 
 issued in 1611. 
 
 Fifty - four learned men were 
 selected impartially from High 
 Churchmen and Puritans, as well 
 as from those who, like Saville 
 and Boys, represented scholarship, 
 totally unconnected with any party. 
 In addition to this band of ap- 
 pointed revisers, the king also de- 
 signed to secure the co-operation 
 of every biblical scholar of note 
 in the kingdom. Amongst the 
 revisers were Bancroft, Bishop 
 of London ; Lively, the Hebrew 
 Reader in Cambridge ; Harding, 
 the Hebrew Reader in Oxford ;
 
 SYNOPSIS OF DATES 87 
 
 Andrews, Dean of Westminster ; 
 and Miles Smith, who afterwards 
 wrote the Preface and Dedication. 
 
 1 6 1 1 . . . The Version was based on the 
 Bishops' Bible ; divisions of chap- 
 ters were changed as little as pos- 
 sible ; marginal references were 
 given from one passage of Scrip- 
 ture to another ; and last (but by 
 no means least) there were no 
 marginal notes, except for the ex- 
 planation of Hebrew and Greek 
 proper nouns. 
 
 Feb. 10, 1870 In the Upper House of the 
 Southern Convocation, Bishop Wil- 
 berforce proposed a resolution relat- 
 ing to a revision of the Authorised 
 Version. 
 
 June 22, 1870 Revision of the New Testament 
 begun in the Jerusalem Chamber. 
 Ellicott, Alford, Stanley, Lightfoot, 
 Westcott, Hort, Scrivener, Eadie, 
 Vaughan and Trench were amongst 
 the revisers.
 
 88 OUR ENGLISH BIBLE 
 
 Nov. 11, 1880 Revision of New Testament 
 ended. 
 
 May 17, 1 88 1 N.T. published. 
 
 Apr. 30, 1885 . Revision of Old Testament 
 ended. 
 
 May 19, 1885 O.T. published. 
 
 Mar. 21, 1879 Revision of Apocrypha begun. 
 
 Jan. 1895 . . Apocrypha published. 
 
 It is interesting and important 
 to read the Introductions and Ap- 
 pendices to the revisions of 1611 
 and of 1880-1895.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 LIST A 
 
 Certain archaic words in the Scriptures t with fairly 
 well-ascertained meanings 
 
 bewray. 
 
 book = volume, or roll. 
 
 chambering. 
 
 charity = love. 
 
 conies. 
 
 cubit, &c., weights and mea- 
 sures generally. 
 
 cymbal, &c., musical instru- 
 ments generally. 
 
 daemon = devil. 
 
 deacon = a server. 
 
 discover = to strip, to lay bare. 
 Ps. xxix. 9 : " and dis- 
 cavereth the thick bushes." 
 
 eschew. 
 
 ghost. 
 
 heresy. 
 
 honest. 
 
 his = its. 
 
 hosen = A.S. hosan, hose, 
 stockings. 
 
 idiot. 
 
 instant = pressing. 
 
 invention. 
 
 89 
 
 jot = smallest Hebrew letter. 
 
 kindly = after its kind, of the 
 best. 
 
 to kiss, viz. one's hand. 
 
 lay to (thy hand) = to work. 
 
 lily = the yellow lilies of Pales- 
 tine, not our lilies of the 
 valley. 
 
 magnincal. 
 
 mote, opposed to beam. 
 
 office (for daily prayer) = service 
 
 overseer. 
 
 pate. 
 
 pen = reed. 
 
 peny = penny, a day's wage. 
 
 ports = gates. 
 
 presbyter. 
 
 ramping. 
 
 rehearse. 
 
 reins. 
 
 runagates. 
 
 sabaoth = hosts, armies. 
 
 saint. \ 
 
 seal, impressed on clay.
 
 9 o 
 
 seed = children. 
 
 shawm. 
 
 silly = simple. 
 
 stool = elevated seat of 
 
 prayer. 
 
 streets = ways, roads, 
 tabret. 
 testament. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 tittle = point employed with 
 the Hebrew consonants. 
 
 timbrel. 
 
 troth = truth. 
 
 wax = to increase, opposed to 
 wane. 
 
 whenas. 
 
 winefat = wine vat. 
 
 LIST B 
 
 Words with changed meanings 
 
 apple, improbably a fruit like 
 our own perhaps, a kind 
 of citron. 
 
 allow, "The Lorde aloweth 
 the waye of the righteous." 
 Not to be confused with 
 allow = " to assign as a por- 
 tion or allowance." 
 
 all to, Judges ix. 53: "And 
 all to brake his skull." 
 
 angel = any messenger 
 hence, a messenger of 
 God. 
 
 atonement = the means where- 
 by two parties are made " at 
 one." 
 
 bed = pallet, rug. 
 
 bottle = (wine) skin. 
 
 by = against, i Cor. iv. 4 : " I 
 know nothing by myself." 
 
 candle = lamp. 
 
 careful = "Be careful for 
 nothing," i.e. cherish no 
 anxious, harassing care. 
 
 carriages, i Sam. xvii. 22 : 
 "and David left his car- 
 riage ( = Heb., the vessels 
 from upon him, the things 
 carried) in the hand of the 
 keeper of the carriage." 
 Acts xxi. 15: "We took 
 up our carriages " ( = our 
 baggage). Yet, even in the 
 present day, we speak of the 
 carriage of an individual 
 i.e. the way in which he 
 carries himself. 
 
 coasts = borders not neces- 
 sarily of the sea or of any 
 water. 
 
 common prayer = used by all t 
 serving for all.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 compass, Acts xxviii. 13 : " We 
 fetched a compass, and came 
 to Rhegium "( = we worked 
 to windward). 
 
 conversation = manner of life ; 
 also, citizenship. 
 
 creature = a created thing, as 
 "those creatures of bread 
 and wine." Rom. viii. 20 : 
 " For the creature ( = the 
 creation) was made subject 
 to vanity." 
 
 cunning = skilful, as a cunning 
 workman. 
 
 damnation = judgment, or con- 
 demnation, not necessarily 
 eternal or everlasting. 
 
 do part, "Till death us </*- 
 /ar/"(Wycliffe). 
 
 ensue = to follow after. 
 
 eternal = age-long. 
 
 fellows, "the virgins that be 
 her fellows " ( = compan- 
 ions). Also, fellows of a 
 college. 
 
 glass = burnished metallic 
 mirror, 
 
 grin = to snarl. 
 
 harness = armour. 
 
 health = soundness of spirit, 
 of body. 
 
 hell = hidden or secret place. 
 A.S., helan, to hide. 
 
 leasing = falsehood. 
 
 let = to hinder, to make late. 
 
 Isa. xviii. 13 : "I will work 
 and who shall let it." 
 
 lively = full of life, life-giving. 
 Acts vii. 38 : " Our fathers 
 received the lively oracles." 
 
 lucre = gain. 
 
 lust = desire; in good sense, 
 pleasure. 
 
 meat-offering = lit. a gift, an 
 offering of meal or vege- 
 tables ; also, food generally, 
 as, " My tears have been 
 my meat day and night." 
 
 miracle = a sign, something 
 wonderful not necessarily 
 supra-natural. 
 
 mouths, " Making mouths at 
 me " a printer's correc- 
 tion for " making mowes" 
 M.E., moe, an ill-natured 
 thrusting-out of the lips, a 
 grimace. 
 
 or ever = before ; or-ere. 
 
 prevent = to come to meet, 
 and so to help. Latin, 
 prcevenire, to come before ; 
 and now, in later usage, 
 and in bad usage, to 
 hinder. 
 
 principalities = beings bearing 
 rule in the spiritual world. 
 
 publican, Latin, publicani, tax- 
 gatherer, fiQmpublicum, the 
 public income or revenue ; 
 now, one who occupies a
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 house licensed to be kept 
 open a certain number of 
 hours a day. 
 
 quick = living. 
 
 roll = a MS. folded on itself 
 in short compass. Zech. 
 v. i : "A flying roll." 
 
 rust = a disease affecting wheat 
 even as moth refers to 
 clothing. 
 
 set by="He that setteth by 
 himself," to think much of, 
 to esteem. 
 
 superstitious = religious over- 
 much. 
 
 tell = to count, to reckon up. 
 Old English, tellan, to 
 count, from talu, a tale, 
 number, tally. Gen. xv. 5 : 
 " And tell the stars." Ps. 
 xxii. 17: "I may tell all 
 my bones." Ps. xxviii. 12 : 
 " Tell the towers thereof." 
 Also Milton : " Every shep- 
 herd tells his tale" i.e. 
 counts his flock. Proverb : 
 " Nine tellers make a man " 
 i.e. nine strokes, or tolls, 
 on the passing bell, to in- 
 dicate the death of a man ; 
 six strokes, that of a woman ; 
 three, of a child. 
 
 train = foil owing, i Kings x. 
 
 2 : " She came to Jerusalem 
 with a very great train" 
 Isa. vi. i : " His train filled 
 the Temple." 
 
 try out = to try thoroughly. 
 Ps. xxvi. 2 : " Try out my 
 reins" ( = the parts about 
 the heart, originally the kid- 
 neys, regarded in Hebrew 
 poetry as the seat of the 
 emotions). 
 
 tush = Ps. x. 6, an exclama- 
 tion of scorn which does 
 not occur in the original. 
 
 tyrant = a ruler. 
 
 very (God) = true God. 
 
 vile (body) = the body of our 
 humiliation. 
 
 vinegar =- posca, or sour wine, 
 used by Roman soldiery. 
 
 vulgar = Latin, vulgaris, be- 
 longing to the great mass, 
 or multitude. 
 
 wist (ye noi) = knew ye not. 
 O.E., Witan, to know ; 
 hence, Witena-gemot, the 
 Saxon Parliament. 
 
 wit = intellect, knowledge. 
 
 wont = accustomed. O.E., 
 gewanian, to dwell, to be 
 accustomed to. 
 
 worship = weorthsiepe, honour 
 
 writing (table) = tablet.
 
 APPENDIX 93 
 
 See also extract from Preface to the Revised Version : " It 
 was a part of the terms of agreement with the American Com- 
 pany that all points of ultimate difference between them and 
 the English Revisers should be placed on record, and they 
 will accordingly be found fully stated at the end of the Old 
 Testament, or at the end of the several portions, according 
 as the Revised Version appears in one or more volumes. 
 Many of them will be found to be changes of language which 
 are involved in the essentially different circumstances of English 
 and American readers ; others express a preference for the 
 marginal rendering over that given in the text ; others, again, 
 involve a real difference of opinion; but all show that they 
 have been dictated by the same leading principle the sincere 
 desire to give to modern readers a faithful representation of 
 the meaning of the original documents." This paragraph is 
 quoted with a salient passage italicised to call attention to the 
 fact that many modern renderings of archaic words were pro- 
 posed by the American Revisers, and are to be found in the 
 lists to which reference is made. 
 
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