THE PREPARATIONS FOR FURTHER REVISION MADE DURING THE PAST TWO CENTURIES.

It has not been left to the present generation to be the first to recognize the force of the various considerations presented in the previous lectures. The duty of providing for a further revision of the English Bible has been handed down as a solemn trust from generation to generation. Every new discovery made of Biblical manuscripts, and every fresh field of research opened up, has at once made the need of revision more apparent, and given intensity to the desire that it should be undertaken; and, in their turn, this quickened desire and this increase of material have prompted to renewed efforts in obtaining all possible subsidiary helps. In this way it has come to pass that the whole period which has elapsed since the publication of the Revision of 1611 has been in effect a time of preparation for another and further revision, and here, as elsewhere, the divine law of human discipline has been verified, that every work accomplished is but the starting-point for fresh endeavours.

In this work of preparation four distinct stages may be clearly traced: the first, that of unfriendly criticism; the second, that of premature attempts at correction; the third, that of diligent research and patient investigation; and the fourth, that of widespread conviction of the desirableness of further revision, and the discussion of the plans by which it may best be accomplished.

From the very first the new version had to undergo an ordeal of criticism, springing sometimes from personal pique, sometimes from party prejudice, sometimes from a one-sided attachment to a favourite doctrine, the evidence for which seemed to be obscured by the rendering given to certain passages. Almost immediately upon the publication of the volume, a violent attack was made upon it by Hugh Broughton, who, though a man of immense erudition, and one of the best Hebraists of the day, was of so overbearing a temper that his offer to aid in the revision had been declined. Broughton declared that the version was so ill done that it bred in him a sadness which would grieve him whilst he breathed. “Tell his Majesty,” he passionately said, “that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged on poor churches.”

In the sharp controversies of the Commonwealth period the slight indications given by the version of a certain ecclesiastical bias were unduly exaggerated. Charges of a direct prelatic influence were freely made, and various rumours were circulated, as if upon good authority, that Archbishop Bancroft had taken upon himself to introduce alterations in opposition to the judgment, and even the protest of the translators. Influenced probably by the feeling thus awakened, though not sharing it, Dr. John Lightfoot, in a sermon preached before the Long Parliament on August 26th, 1645,[92] expressed the hope that they would find some time among their serious employments to think of a “review and survey of the translation of the Bible.” “And certainly,” he added, “it would not be the least advantage that you might do to the three nations, if they, by your care and means, might come to understand the proper and genuine reading of the Scriptures by an exact, vigorous, and lively translation.”

In 1653 the charge that the New Testament “had been looked over by some Prelates, to bring it to speak the Prelatical language,” was formally repeated in the preamble of a Bill brought before the Long Parliament, which proposed the appointment of a committee “to search and observe wherein that last translation appears to be wronged by the Prelates or printers or others.”[93] In 1659 a folio volume of 805 pages, entitled, “An Essay toward the Amendment of the Last English Translation of the Bible, or a Proof by many instances that the last Translation of the Bible into English may be improved,” was published by Dr. Robert Gell, “Minister of the Parish of St. Mary, Alder-Mary, London.” Dr. Gell was a man who stoutly maintained the doctrine that it is “possible and attainable through the grace of God and His Holy Spirit that men may be without sin,” and his book is an elaborate attempt to show that this doctrine “was frequently delivered in holy Scripture, though industriously obscured by our translators.” An attack of another kind was made a quarter of a century later, by a Roman Catholic writer named Thomas Ward, who, repeating many of the charges made against the earlier English versions by Gregory Martin, one of the authors of the Rhemish version, charged the translators with corrupting the Holy Scriptures by false and partial translations, for the purpose of gaining unfair advantage in the controversy with the Church of Rome.[94]

These hostile criticisms, though made in a spirit of partisanship and marred by much uncharitableness and unfairness, were nevertheless of service. They forced upon all, though in a rude and unpleasant way, the recognition of the fact that the new version, with all its excellences, was still the work of fallible men; and despite their passion and their hard words, they did undoubtedly hit some blots that here and there disfigured the sacred page. To this extent they served to prepare the way for further revision.

A second stage in the process of preparation is seen in the various attempts which have been made to produce a version which should remove acknowledged blemishes, and more faithfully convey the meaning of the holy Word. Some of these have been based upon a well-conceived plan, and have sought to accomplish the desired end by the united efforts of a band of fellow-labourers; others have been the work of individual scholars, and were for the most part of a tentative character, intended simply to show what ought to be attempted, and how it might be done; others, again, have been the unwise labours of men who worked upon false principles, and with insufficient knowledge; but all have in their own way helped on the work, the former two classes by their felicitous renderings of some passages, and the light they have thrown upon the meaning of others, and the last mentioned class by their clear demonstration of what a translation of the Scriptures ought certainly not to be.

The first[95] serious attempt at a further revision was made by the Rev. Henry Jessey, M.A., pastor of that greatly persecuted Congregational Church in Southwark, which had been gathered by Henry Jacob in 1616. In the time of the Commonwealth proposals were made by Jessey, that “godly and able men” should be appointed by “public authority” “to review and amend the defects in our translation.” Pending their appointment, he set himself to secure the co-operation of a number of learned men, at home and abroad, writing to them in the following fashion: “There being a strange desire in many that love the truth, to have a more pure, proper translation of the originals than hitherto; and I being moved and inclined to it, and desirous to promote it with all possible speed and exactness, do make my request (now in my actual entrance on Genesis) that as you love the truth as it is in Jesus, and the edification of saints, you with others (in like manner solicited), will take share and do each a part in the work, which being finished will be fruit to your account.” Of the names of his fellow-workers the only one recorded is that of Mr. John Row, Hebrew professor at Aberdeen, “who took exceeding pains herein,” and who drew up the scheme in accordance with which the work was carried on. Jessey’s proposal received at least so much of support from “public authority,” that he was one of the committee whose appointment was recommended to the House of Commons in 1653. The result is thus quaintly told by Jessey’s biographer:[96] “Thus thorow his perswasions many persons excelling in knowledge, integrity, and holiness, did buckle to this great Worke of bettering the Translation of the Bible, but their names are thought fit at present to be concealed to prevent undue Reflections upon their persons; but may come to light (if that work shall ever come to be made publick), and unto each of them was one particular book or more allotted, according as they had leisure, or as the bent of their Genius, advantages of Books or Studies lay, which when supervised by all the rest, dayes of assembling together were to have been set apart, to seek the Lord for His further direction, and for conference with each other touching the matter then under consideration. In process of time this whole work was almost compleated, and stayed for nothing but the appointment of Commissioners to examine it, and warrant its publication.” The death of Cromwell, and the political events which followed, prevented the realization of Jessey’s hopes. It had been with him the work of many years of his life, and his soul was so engaged in it that he frequently uttered the prayer, “O that I might see this done before I die.”

The ecclesiastical events arising out of the Act of Uniformity (1662) will sufficiently account for the absence of any efforts of revision during the latter part of the seventeenth century. In the earlier part of the following century there appeared one of those ill-advised attempts, whose chief use is to serve as a beacon of warning, in the Greek and English New Testament, published A.D. 1729, by W. Mace, M.D.[97] In his translation this author allowed himself to employ an unpleasantly free style of rendering, and deemed it fitting to substitute the colloquial style of the day for the dignified simplicity of the version he undertook to amend.

Towards the latter part of the century a considerable number of well-meant endeavours at revision were made by devout and scholarly men.

In 1764 “A new and literal Translation of the Old and New Testament, with notes, critical and explanatory,” was published by Anthony Purver, a member of the Society of Friends.

In 1770 there was issued “The New Testament, or New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from the Greek according to the present idiom of the English tongue, with notes and references,” by John Worsley, of Hertford, whose aim, as stated in his preface, was to bring his translation nearer to the original, and “to make the present form of expression more suitable to our present language,” adding, with a laudable desire to repudiate all sympathy with those who forced the Scripture to say what, according to their own fancies, it ought to say, “I have no design to countenance any particular opinions or sentiments. I have weighed, as it were, every word in a balance, even to the minutest particle, begging the gracious aid of the Divine Spirit to lead me into the true and proper meaning, that I might give a just and exact translation of this great and precious charter of man’s salvation.”[98]In 1781 Gilbert Wakefield, late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, but then classical tutor of the Warrington Academy, published “a new translation of the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians, offered to the public as a specimen of an intended version of the whole New Testament, with a preface containing a brief account of the Author’s plan.” This was followed in 1782 by a new translation of the Gospel of Matthew, and in 1791 by a translation of the whole of the New Testament.[99]

In 1786 a Roman Catholic clergyman (the Rev. Alexander Geddes, LL.D.) issued a prospectus of “a New Translation of the Holy Bible from corrected texts of the originals, compared with the Ancient Versions.” This prospectus was very favourably received by many of the leading Biblical scholars of the day, especially by the great Hebraist, Dr. Benjamin Kennicott, Canon of Christchurch, and by Dr. Robert Lowth, Bishop of London, and was followed in 1788 by formal proposals for printing the book by subscription. The first volume appeared in 1792, with the title “The Holy Bible, or the Books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians; otherwise called the Books of the Old and New Covenants, faithfully translated from corrected texts of the Originals, with various readings, explanatory notes, and critical remarks.” Two other volumes were afterwards published; but the death of the author, in 1801, prevented the completion of the work.[100]

In 1796 Dr. William Newcome, Archbishop of Armagh, published “An attempt towards revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures, or the New Covenant of Jesus Christ; and towards illustrating the sense by philological and explanatory notes.”

Passing over some other works less worthy of notice, a scholarly attempt was made in 1836 by Grenville Penn to introduce into the English version some of the results which had then been attained by the critical examination of ancient authorities. This work bore the title, “The Book of the New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, being a critical revision of the text and translation of the English version of the New Testament, with the aid of most ancient manuscripts, unknown to the age in which that version was last put forth by authority.”

It is not to be supposed that any of these translations were published with the expectation of securing so large a measure of favour as to supersede the current version. Their primary purpose was to aid the private study of the Bible; but they have been of great service also in keeping the general question of revision before the notice of thoughtful persons, and they have each in their measure contributed to a more exact knowledge of the Scriptures.

The failure of the earlier of these attempts at revision arose in part from the imperfect state of the texts upon which they were based. This soon became obvious, and Biblical scholars saw that for some time to come their labours must be spent rather in laying the foundation for a future revision than in attempting it themselves, and this in three distinct departments. The first of these was the collection, as described in the last lecture, of the material supplied by ancient manuscripts, and by early versions and quotations. In this department a long succession of faithful men have laboured, amongst whom may be mentioned Brian Walton, who in 1657 published his famous Polyglot Bible in six folio volumes, giving in addition to the original Hebrew and Greek, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Æthiopic, and Persian versions; Dr. John Mill, whose New Testament was published in 1770, and of whom it has been justly said that “his services to Bible criticism surpass in extent and value those rendered by any other except one or two men yet living;”[101] Dr. Richard Bentley, who, having himself collated the Alexandrine and other ancient MSS., and by various agencies amassed a large store of critical material, published in 1720 his “Proposals for Printing” revised texts both of the Greek New Testament and the Latin Vulgate; Dr. Kennicott, who in 1760 aroused public attention to the importance of collating all Hebrew MSS. made before the invention of printing, and who personally, or through the aid of others, collated more than six hundred Hebrew MSS., and sixteen MSS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch; John Bernard de Rossi, professor of Oriental languages in the University of Parma, who in 1784-8 published the results of the collation of seven hundred and thirty-one MSS., and of three hundred editions of the Hebrew Scriptures; and, to come to more recent times, Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, and Dr. Frederick Henry Scrivener, whose names are to be held in the highest honour, as of men who have rendered invaluable service to their own and future generations in the exhausting and self-denying work of the collation of Biblical MSS., and through whose care and accuracy the means of obtaining an exact knowledge of a large number of most precious documents have been placed within easy reach of all.

The second department of labour is the application of the material thus collected to the correction of the text. Here again a vast amount of patient work has been done, and out of the successive labours of a long series of critics much valuable experience has been gained and the best methods gradually learnt. Amongst those who have thus laboured in the criticism of the text of the New Testament may be mentioned the names of Bengel, Wettstein, Griesbach, Scholz, Tischendorf, Lachmann, Alford, Tregelles, Westcott, and Hort; and of that of the Old Testament, Buxtorf, Leusden, Van der Hooght, Michaelis, Houbigant, Kennicott, and Jahn.The third department is that which is concerned with the investigation of the meaning of the sacred writers; and how much has been done in this will be manifest to any one who makes the attempt to reckon up the long series of commentaries, English and Continental, on the books of the Holy Scriptures, published since the Revision of 1611, commencing with the Annotations of the eminent Nonconformist, Henry Ainsworth, on the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Song of Solomon, 1627, down to the recent commentaries on Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, by Dr. J. B. Lightfoot, the present Bishop of Durham. The attempt to make this enumeration will deepen the desire that the light which has been shed upon the Bible by this long succession of its learned and earnest students should now be employed for the guidance and help of the ordinary readers of its pages.

To such desire emphatic expression has been given in various ways through full two generations, with an ever increasing intensity, and by representative men amongst all Christian communities.

So early in the present century as the year 1809, Dr. John Pye Smith, President of the Congregational College at Homerton, thus wrote: “That such blemishes should disfigure that translation of the best and most important of volumes, which has been and still is more read by thousands of the pious than any other version, ancient or modern; that they should be acknowledged by all competent judges to exist; that they should have been so long and often complained of; and yet that there has been no great public act, from high and unimpeachable authority, for removing them, we are constrained to view as a disgrace to our national literature. We do not wish to see our common version, now become venerable by age and prescription, superseded by another entirely new; every desirable purpose would be satisfactorily attained by a faithful and well-conducted revision.”[102]In the following year (1810) Dr. Herbert Marsh, then Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and subsequently Bishop of Peterborough, in the first edition of his Lectures wrote: “It is probable that our authorised version is as faithful a representation of the original Scriptures as could have been formed at that period. But when we consider the immense accession that has since been made, both to our critical and philological apparatus;” “when we consider that the most important sources of intelligence for the interpretation of the original Scriptures were likewise opened after that period, we cannot possibly pretend that our authorised version does not require amendment.”[103]

In 1816 Thomas Wemyss, a learned layman, who had devoted himself to Biblical studies, called attention, under the title of Biblical Gleanings, to a number of passages which were generally allowed to be mistranslated; and in 1819 Sir James Bland Burges published Reasons in favour of a New Translation of the Scriptures.

During a few years after this, the subject remained in abeyance, but in 1832 there was published, at Cambridge, a calm and scholarly pamphlet, entitled Hints on an Improved Translation of the New Testament, by the Rev. James Scholefield, A.M., Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge. A second edition was issued in 1836, and a third, with an appendix, in 1849.

Through these and other publications a widely-spread conviction was produced that the work ought at length to be attempted, and in the years 1855-57 the question was in a very emphatic form brought under public notice. In the Edinburgh Review of October, 1855, in a notice of a certain Paragraph Bible then recently published, there appeared the following words: “Surely it is high time for a further revision. It is now almost 250 years since the last was made. During that long period neither the researches of the clergy nor the intelligence of the laity have remained stationary. We have become desirous of knowing more, and they have acquired more to teach us. Vast stores of Biblical information have been accumulating since the days of James I., by which, not merely the rendering of the Common Version, but the purity of the Sacred Text itself, might be improved. And it is essential to the interests of religion that that information should be fully, freely, and in an authoritative form, disseminated abroad by a careful correction of our received version of the Sacred Scriptures.”

In the following year, 1856, the Rev. William Selwyn, Canon of Ely, and Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, sent forth his Notes on the proposed Amendment of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, in which he states: “I do not hesitate to avow my firm persuasion that there are at least one thousand passages of the English Bible that might be amended without any change in the general texture and justly reverenced language of the version.”

In July of the same year an address to the Crown was moved in the House of Commons by Mr. Heywood, member for North Lancashire, praying that Her Majesty would appoint a Royal Commission of learned men to consider of such amendments of the authorized version of the Bible as had been already proposed, and to receive suggestions from all persons who might be willing to offer them, and to report the amendments which they might be prepared to recommend.

In the January of the following year a resolution in support of revision was proposed at the general meeting of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, by the Rev. G. F. Biber, LL.D., who subsequently published the substance of his speech in support of this resolution, under the title, A Plea for an Edition of the Authorized Version of Holy Scripture with explanatory and emendatory marginal readings. Pamphlets also were published the same year by Dr. Beard and by Dr. Henry Burgess; but, what it is more important to note, in that year there was published the first of a series of works which were intended to show by example the kind of work which the wiser advocates of revision desired to see undertaken. This was The Gospel according to John, after the Authorized Version, newly compared with the original Greek, and revised by five clergymen—John Barrow, D.D.; George Moberly, D.C.L.; Henry Alford, B.D.; William G. Humphry, B.D.; Charles J. Ellicott, M.A. In that same year also Dr. Trench, then Dean of Westminster (now Archbishop of Dublin), published his work On the Authorized Version of the New Testament; and in 1863 Dr. Plumptre, in the Dictionary of the Bible, reiterated the statement, “The work ought not to be delayed much longer.”

In the spring of 1870 the desirableness of a fresh revision of the English Bible was advocated—by Dr. J. B. Lightfoot in a paper read before a meeting of clergy; by the writer of these lectures in a paper read before the annual meeting of the Congregational Union of England and Wales; by the British Quarterly Review in its January number; and, finally, by the Quarterly Review in its April number.

A weighty sentence from the last-mentioned writer will be a fitting conclusion to the present lecture. “It is positive unfaithfulness on the part of those who have ability and opportunity to decline the task. The Word of God, just because it is God’s Word, ought to be presented to every reader in a state as pure and perfect as human learning, skill, and taste can make it. The higher our veneration for it the more anxious ought we to be to free it from every blemish, however small and unimportant. But nothing in truth can be unimportant which dims the light of Divine Revelation.”