NATURE OF THE RENDERINGS
From the text we now turn to the renderings,
and to the general principles that were followed,
both in the Old and in the New Testament. The
revision of the English text was in each case subject
to the same general rule, viz. “To
introduce as few alterations as possible into the
Text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness”;
but, owing to the great difference between the two
languages, the Hebrew and the Greek, the application
of the rule was necessarily different, and the results
not easily comparable the one with the other.
It will be best then to consider the
renderings in the two Testaments separately, and to
form the best estimate we can of their character and
of their subordination to the general rule, with due
regard to the widely different nature of the structure
and grammatical principles of the two languages through
which God has been pleased to reveal His truth to the
children of men.
I. We begin then with the Revised
Version of the Old Testament, and naturally turn for
general guidance to the Preface of those who were
engaged in the long, diversified, and responsible work.
Their general principles as to departures from the Authorised Version would appear to be included in
the following clearly-specified particulars.
They departed from the Authorised Version (a)
where they did not agree with it as to the meaning
or construction of a word or sentence; (b) where
it was necessary, for the sake of uniformity, to render
such parallel passages as were identical in Hebrew
by the same English words; (c) where the English
of the Authorised Version was liable to be misunderstood
by reason of its being archaic or obscure; (d)
where the rendering of an earlier English version
seemed preferable; and (e) where, by an apparently
slight change, it was possible to bring out more fully
the meaning of a passage of which the translation was
substantially accurate.
These principles, which I have been
careful to specify in the exact words of the Revisers,
will appear to every impartial reader to be fully in
harmony with the principle of faithfulness; and will
be found if an outsider may presume to
make a passing comment to have been carried
out with pervasive consistency and uniformity.
The Revisers further notice certain
particulars of which the general reader should take
full note, so much of the random criticisms of the
revised text (especially in the New Testament) having
been due to a complete disregard in each case of the
Preface, and of the reasons given for changes which
long experience had shown to be both reasonable and
necessary.
The first particular is the important
question of the rendering of the word “Jéhovah.”
Here the Revisers have thought it advisable to follow
the usage of the Authorised Version, and not to insert
the word uniformly in place of “LORD”
or “GOD,” which words when printed in small
capitals represent the words substituted by Jewish
custom for the ineffable Name according to the vowel
points by which it is distinguished. To this
usage the Revisers have steadily adhered with the exception
of a very few passages in which the introduction of
a proper name seemed to be required. In this
grave matter, as we all probably know, the American
Company has expressed its dissent from the decision
of the English Company, and has adopted the proper
name wherever it occurs in the Hebrew text for “the
LORD” and “GOD.” Most English
readers will agree with our Revisers. It may
indeed be said, now that we can read the American text
continuously, that there certainly are many passages
in which the proper name seems to come upon eye or
ear with a serious and appropriate force; still the
reverence with which we are accustomed to treat what
the Revisers speak of as “the ineffable Name”
will lead most of us to sacrifice the passages, where
the blessed name may have an impressive force, to
the reverential uniformity of our Authorised Version,
and to the latent fear that frequent iteration might
derogate from the solemnity with which we instinctively
clothe the ever-blessed name of Almighty God.
The next particular relates to terms
of natural history. Here changes have only been
made where it was certain that the Authorised Version
was incorrect, and highly probable that the word substituted
was right. Where doubt existed, the text was
left unchanged, but the alternative word was placed
in the margin. In regard of other terms, of which
the old rendering was certainly wrong, as in the case
of the Hebrew term Asherah (probably the wooden
symbol of a goddess), the Revisers have used the word,
whether in the singular or plural, as a proper name.
In the case of the Hebrew term “Sheol”
(corresponding to the Greek term “Hades"), variously
rendered in the Authorised Version by the words “grave,”
“pit,” and “hell,” the Revisers
have adopted in the historical books the first or
second words with a marginal note, “Heb. Sheol,”
but in the poetical books they have reversed this
arrangement. The American Revisers, on the contrary,
specify that in all cases where the word occurs in
the Hebrew text they place it unchanged in the English
text, and without any margin. The case is a
difficult one, but the English arrangement is to be
preferred, as the reader would not so plainly need
a preliminary explanation.
The last case that it here seems necessary
to allude to is the change everywhere of the words
“the tabernacle of the congregation” into
“the tent of meeting,” as the former words
convey an entirely wrong sense. These and the
use of several other terms are carefully noted and
explained by the Revisers, and will, I hope, induce
every careful reader of their revision to make it
his duty to study their prefatory words. The
almost unavoidable differences between them and the
American Revisers, as to our own language, are alluded
to by them in terms both friendly and wise, and may
be considered fully to express the sentiments of the
New Testament Company, by whom the subject is less
precisely alluded to.
In passing from the Preface to the
great work which it introduces, I feel the greatest
difficulty, as a member of a different Company, in
making more than a few very general comments.
In fact, I should scarcely have ventured to do even
this, had I not met with a small but very instructive
volume on the revision of the Authorised Version of
the Old Testament written by one of the American Revisers,
and published at New York some fifteen or sixteen
years ago. The volume is entitled perhaps with excusable brevity A Companion to
the Revised Old Testament. The writer was
Rev. Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, of the Collegiate Reformed
Dutch Church of New York, from whose preface I learn
that he was the only pastor in the Company, the others
being professors in theological seminaries, and representing
seven different denominations and nine different institutions.
The book is written with great modesty, and as far
as I can judge, with a good working knowledge of Hebrew.
The writer disclaims in it the position of speaking
in any degree for the Company of which he was a member,
but mentions that his undertaking was approved of
by his colleagues, and received the assistance, more
or less, of all of them. He was a member of
the Company during the last ten years of its labours.
I can recommend this useful volume
to any student of the Old Testament who is desirous
to see a selected list of the changes made by the
Revisers in the Pentateuch, Historical Books, Poetical
Books, and Prophetical Books. These changes
are given in four chapters, and in most cases are
accompanied by explanatory comments, which from their
tenor often seem to be reminiscences of corporate
discussion. I mention these particulars as I
am not aware of any similar book on the Old Testament
written by any one of the English Company. If
there is such a book, I do sincerely hope the writer
will forgive me for not having been so fortunate as
to meet with it.
The remaining comments I shall venture
to make on the rendering of the Old Testament will
rest on the general knowledge I have acquired of this
carefully-executed and conservative revision, and on
some consideration of the many illustrations which
Dr. Chambers has selected in his interesting manual.
The impression that has long been left on my mind
by the serious reading of the Old Testament in the
Revised Version is that not nearly enough has been
said of the value of the changes that have been made,
and of the strong argument they furnish for the reading
of the Revision in the public services of the Church.
Let any serious person read the Book of Job with
the two English versions in parallel columns, and
form a sober opinion on the comparison his judgement I am confident will be, that if the Revision
of this Book be a fair sample of the Revision generally,
our congregations have a just right to claim that the
Revised Version of the Old Testament should be publicly
read in their churches. Ours is a Bible-loving
country, and the English Bible in its most correct
form can never be rightly withheld from our public
ministrations.
I shall now close this portion of
the present Address with a few comments on the four
parts of the Revision to which I have already alluded the
Pentateuch, and the Historical, Poetical, and Prophetical
Books of the Old Testament.
What the careful reader of Genesis
will not fail to observe is the number of passages
in which comparatively small alterations give a new
light to details of the sacred narrative which, in
general reading, are commonly completely overlooked.
A new colouring, so to speak, is given to the whole,
and rectifications of prevailing conceptions not unfrequently
introduced, either in the text or, as often happens,
by means of the margin, where they could hardly have
been anticipated. The prophecy of Jacob as to
the future of his children will supply
an instance. In the character of Reuben few
of us would understand more than general unsteadiness
and changefulness in purpose and in act, but a glance
at the margin will show that impulse and excitability
were plainly elements in his nature which led him
into the grievous and hateful sin for which his father
deposed him from the excellency of a first-born.
What has been said of the Book of
Genesis is equally applicable to the remainder of
the Pentateuch. The object throughout is elucidation,
not simply correction of errors but removal of obscurity,
if not by changes introduced into the printed text,
yet certainly always by the aid of the margin; as,
for example, in the somewhat difficult passage of Exodus
xvi, where really, it would seem, that the margin
might rightly have had its place in the text.
Sometimes the correction of what might seem trivial
error, as in Exodus xxxi, gives an intelligible
view of the whole details of the circumstance specified.
Moses put on the veil after he had ceased speaking
with them. While he was speaking to them he was
speaking as God’s representative. In Numbers
x the correction of a mistranslation removes
what might otherwise lead to a very grave misconception,
viz. that the gift of prophecy was continuous
in the case of the whole elderhood. In the chapters
relating to Balaam, independently of the alterations
that are made in the language of his remarkable utterances,
the mere fact of their being arranged rhythmically
could not fail to cause the public reader, almost unconsciously,
to change his tone of voice, and to make the reading
of the prophecy more distinct and impressive.
Among many useful changes in Deuteronomy one may
certainly be noticed , in which the obscure
and difficult clause in regard of the tree in the neighbourhood of the besieged city is made at any
rate intelligible.
In the historical books attention
may be particularly called to the Song of Deborah
and Barak, in which there are several important and
elucidatory corrections, and in which the rhythmic
arrangement will be felt to bear force and impressiveness
both to reader and to hearer. In the remaining
Books changes will be found fewer in number and less
striking; but occasionally, as for example in 1 Kings
x, we come across changes that startle us by
their unlooked-for character, but which, if correct,
add a deeper degradation to the outpoured blood of
Ahab in the pool of Samaria.
Of the poetical Books, I have already
alluded to the Book of Job and to the high character
of the Revision. The changes in this noble poem
are many, and were especially needed, for the rendering
of the Book of Job has always been felt to be one
of the weakest portions of the great work of the Revisers
of 1611. Illustrations I am unable to give, in
a cursory notice like the present, but I may again
press the Revisers’ version of this deeply interesting
Book on the serious attention of every earnest student
of the Old Testament.
It is difficult to say much on the
Revised Version of the Book of Psalms, as Coverdale’s
Version, as we have it in our Prayer Book, so completely
occupies the foreground of memory and devotional interest,
that I fear comparatively few study the Bible Version
or the careful and conservative work of the Revisers.
This Revision, however, of the version of the Book
of Psalms deserves more attention than it appears to
have received. Not only will the faithful reader
find in it the necessary corrections of the version
of 1611, but clear guidance as to the meaning of the
sometimes utterly unintelligible renderings of the
version of the Great Bible which still holds its place
in our Prayer Books. To take two examples:
let the reader look at the Authorised Version and
Prayer Book Version of Psalm lxvii, and of lxxxi, 6, and contrast with both the rendering of the
Revised Version. This last-mentioned rendering
will be found, as I have said, to correct the Authorised
Version, and (especially in the second passage) to
remove what is unintelligible in the Prayer Book version.
It may thus be used by the Prayer Book reader of the
Psalms as a ready and easily accessible means of arriving
at the real meaning of the many ambiguities and obscurities
which long familiarity with the Prayer Book Version
has led him to pass over without any particular notice.
The revision of the Prayer Book Version has been long
felt to be a very real necessity. To read and
to hear read in the daily services of the Church what,
in parts, cannot be understood can never be spiritually
good for reader or hearer. And yet, such is the
really devout conservatism of the bulk of our congregations,
that though a careful revision, sympathetically executed,
has been strongly urged by some of our most earnest
scholars and divines, it is more than doubtful whether
such a revision ever will be carried out. If
this be so, it only remains for us so to encourage,
in our schools and in our Bible classes, the efficient
explanatory help of the Revised Version. If this
is steadily done, nearly all that is at present obscure
or unintelligible in the Prayer Book Version will
no longer remain so to the greater part of our worshippers.
Of the remaining Poetical Books the
revision of the Authorised Version of the Song of
Solomon must be specially noticed. In the common
version the dramatic element is almost entirely lost,
the paragraphs are imperfectly noted, and obscurities
not a few the inevitable consequence. In a large
degree these serious imperfections are removed, and
the whole tenor of this exquisite poem made clear
to the general reader. The margin will show
the great care bestowed on the poem by the Revisers;
and the fewness and trifling nature of the changes
maintained by the American Company will also show,
in a confessedly difficult Book, the somewhat remarkable
amount of the agreement between the two Companies.
On the Prophetical Books I do not feel qualified
to speak except in very general terms; and for illustrations
must refer the reader to the large list of the corrected
renderings, especially of the prophecy of Isaiah, in
the useful work of Dr. Chambers, who has devoted at
least eleven pages to the details of the Revisers’
work on the Evangelist of the Old Covenant. The
impression which the consideration of these details
leaves on the mind of the reader will be, I am confident,
the same as that which is I believe felt by all professed
Hebrew scholars who have examined the version, viz.
that it is not only faithful and thorough, but often
rises to a very high level of poetic utterance.
Let any one read aloud in the Revised Version the
well-known passage, already nobly
rendered in the Old Version, and ask himself if the
seemingly slight and trivial changes have not maintained
this splendid utterance at a uniform height of sustained
and eloquent vigour.
In the prophecies of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel the changes are less striking and noticeable,
not however from any diminished care in the work of
revision, but from the tenor of the prophecies being
less familiar to the general reader. Four pages
of instructive illustrations are supplied by Dr. Chambers
in the case of each of the two prophecies. The
more noticeable changes in Daniel and Hosea are also
specified by Dr. Chambers, but the remainder of the
minor prophets, with perhaps the exception of Habakkuk,
are passed over with but little illustrative notice.
A very slight inspection however of these difficult
prophecies will certainly show two things first,
that the Revisers of 1611 did their work in this portion
of Holy Scripture less successfully than elsewhere;
secondly, that the English and American Revisers between whom the differences
are here noticeably very few laboured
unitedly and successfully in keeping their revision
of the preceding version of these prophecies fully
up to the high level of the rest of their work.
II. I now pass onward to the
consideration of the renderings in the Revised Version
of the New Testament.
The object and purpose of the consideration
will be exactly the same, as in the foregoing pages,
to show the faithful thoroughness of the Revision,
but the manner of showing this will be somewhat different
to the method I have adopted in the foregoing portion
of this Address. I shall not now bring before
you examples of the faithful and suggestive accuracy
of the revision, for to do this adequately would far
exceed the limits of these Addresses; and further,
if done would far fall short of the instructive volume
of varied and admirably arranged illustrations written
only four years ago by a member of the Company ,
now, alas, no longer with us, of which I shall speak
fully in my next Address.
What I shall now do will be to show
that the principles on which the version of the New
Testament was based have been in no degree affected
by the copious literature connected with the language
of the Greek Testament and its historical position
which has appeared since the Revision was completed.
It is only quite lately that the Revisers have been
represented as being insufficiently acquainted, in
several particulars, with the Greek of the New Testament,
and in a word, being twenty years behind what is now
known on the subject . Such charges are easily
made, and may at first sight seem very plausible, as
the last fifteen or twenty years have brought with
them an amount of research in the language of the
Greek Testament which might be thought to antiquate
some results of the Revision, and to affect to some
extent the long labours of those who took part in
it. The whole subject then must be fairly considered,
especially in such an Address as the present, in which
the object is to set forth the desirableness and rightfulness
of using the version in the public services of the
Church.
But first a few preliminary comments
must be made on the manner and principles in which
the changes of rendering have been introduced into
the venerable Version which was intrusted to us to
be revised.
The foremost principle to be alluded
to is the one to which we adhered steadily and persistently
during the whole ten years of our labour the
principle of faithfulness to the original language
in which it pleased Almighty God that His saving truth
should be revealed to the children of men. As
the lamented Bishop of Durham says most truly and forcibly
in his instructive “Lessons on the Revised Version
of the New Testament ;” “Faithfulness,
the most candid and the most scrupulous, was the central
aim of the Revisers .” Faithfulness,
but to what? Certainly not to “the sense
and spirit of the original ,” as our critics
contended must have been meant by the rule, but
to the original in its plain grammatical meaning as
elicited by accurate interpretation. This I can
confidently state was the intended meaning of the word
when it appeared in the draft rule that was submitted
to the Committee of Convocation. So it was understood
by them; and so, I may add, it was understood by the
Company, because I can clearly remember a very full
discussion on the true meaning of the word at one of
the early meetings of the Company. Some alteration
had been proposed in the rendering of the Greek to
which objection was made that it did not come under
the rule and principle of faithfulness. This
led to a general, and, as it proved, a final discussion.
Bishop Lightfoot, I remember, took an earnest part
in it. He contended that our revision must be
a true and thorough one; that such a meeting as ours
could not be assembled for many years to come, and
that if the rendering was plainly more accurate and
more true to the original, it ought not to be put
aside as incompatible with some supposed aspect of
the rule of faithfulness. Proposals were often
set aside without the vote being taken, on the ground
that it was not “worth while” to make
them, and in a trivial matter to disturb recollection
of a familiar text; but the non-voting resulted from
the proposal being withdrawn owing to the mind of
the Company being plainly against it, and not from
any direct appeal to the principle of faithfulness.
If the proposal was pressed, the vote of the Company
was always taken, and the matter authoritatively settled.
The contention, often very recklessly
urged, that the Revisers deliberately violated the
principles under which the work was committed to them
is thus, to use the kindest form of expression, entirely
erroneous. I have dwelt upon this matter because
when properly understood it clears away more than
half of the objections that have been urged against
our Revision. Of the remainder I cannot but agree
with good Bishop Westcott that no criticism of the
Revision and the criticisms were of every
form and kind “pedantry, spiritless literality,
irritating triviality, destroyed rhythm,” and
so forth no criticism ever came upon us
by surprise. The Revisers, as the Bishop truly
says, heard in the Jerusalem Chamber all the arguments
against their conclusions they have heard since; and
he goes on to say that no restatement of old arguments
had in the least degree shaken his confidence in the
general results. Such words from one now, alas,
no longer with us, but whose memory we cherish as
one of the most wide-minded as well as truth-seeking
of the biblical scholars of our own times, may well
serve to reassure the partially hesitating reader
of the Revised Version of its real trustworthiness
and fidelity. But we must not confine our attention
simply to the renderings that hold a place in the text
of the Revised Version. We must take into our
consideration a very instructive portion of the work
of the Revisers which is, I fear, utterly neglected
by the general reader the alternative readings
and renderings that hold a place in the margin, and
form an integral portion of the Revision. Though
we are now more particularly considering the renderings,
I include here the marginal readings, as the relation
of the margins to the Version could hardly be fully
specified without taking into consideration the margin
in its entirety. As readers of the Preface to
the New Testament (very few, I fear, to judge by current
criticisms) will possibly remember, alternative readings
and renderings were prohibited in the case of the Authorised Version, but, as we know, the prohibition
was completely disregarded, some thirty-five notes
referring to readings, and probably more than five
hundred to alternative renderings. In the fundamental
rules of Convocation for the Revision just the opposite
course was prescribed, and, as we know, freely acted
on.
These alternative readings and renderings
must be carefully considered, as in the case of renderings
much light is often thrown on the true interpretation
of the passage, especially in the more difficult portions
of the New Testament. Their relation however
to the actually accepted Version must not be exaggerated,
either in reference to readings or renderings.
I will make plain what I mean by an example.
Dr. Westcott specifies a reading of importance in
John where he states that the reading in the
margin ("God only begotten”) did in point of
fact express the opinion of the majority of the Company,
but did not appear in the text of the Version because
it failed to secure the two-thirds majority of those
present at the final revision. This, perhaps,
makes a little too much of an acceptance at a somewhat
early period of the labours of the Company.
So far as I remember the case, the somewhat startling
alteration was accepted at the first revision (when
the decision was to be by simple majorities), but
a margin was granted, which of course continued up
to the second revision. At that revision the
then text and the then margin changed places.
Dr. Hort, I am well aware, published an important
pamphlet on the subject, but I have no remembrance
that the first decision on the reading was alluded
to, either at the second revision or afterwards, in
any exceptional manner. It did but share the
fate of numberless alterations at the first revision
that were not finally confirmed.
The American Revisers, it will be
observed, agree as to the reading in question with
their English brethren; and the same too is the judgement
of Professor Nestle in his carefully edited Greek Testament
to which I have already referred.
I have dwelt upon this particular
case, because though I am especially desirous to encourage
a far greater attention to the margin than it has
hitherto received, I am equally desirous that the margin
should not be elevated above its real position.
That position is one of subordination to the version
actually adopted, whether when maintaining the older
form or changing it. It expresses the judgement
of a legal, if not also of a numerical, minority,
and, in the case of difficult passages (as in Rom.
i, the judgement of groups which the Company,
as a whole, deemed worthy of being recorded.
But, not only should the margin thus be considered,
but the readings and renderings preferred by the American
Committee, which will often be found suggestive and
helpful. These, as we know, are now incorporated
in the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible;
and the result, I fear, will be that the hitherto familiar
Appendix will disappear from the smaller English editions
of the Revised Version of the Old and New Testament.
It is perhaps inevitable, but it will be a real loss.
All I can hope is that in some specified English
editions of the Old and New Testament each Appendix
will regularly be maintained, and that this token
of the happy union of England and America in the blessed
work of revising their common version of God’s
holy Word will thus be preserved to the end.
But we must now pass onward to considerations
very closely affecting the renderings of the Revised
Version of the Greek Testament.
I have already said that very recently
a new and unexpected charge has been brought against
the Revisers of the Authorised Version. And the
charge is no less than this, that the Revisers were
ignorant in several important particulars of the language
from which the version was originally made that they
were appointed to revise.
Now in meeting a charge of this nature,
in which we may certainly notice that want of considerate
intelligence which marks much of the criticism that
has been directed against our revision, it seems always
best when dealing with a competent scholar who does
not give in detail examples on which the criticism
rests, to try and understand his point of view and
the general reasons for his unfavourable pronouncement.
And in this case I do not think it difficult to perceive
that the imputation of ignorance on the part of the
Revisers has arisen from an exaggerated estimate of
the additions to our knowledge of New Testament Greek
which have accumulated during the twenty years that
have passed away since the Revision was completed.
If this be a correct, as it is certainly a charitable,
estimate of the circumstances under which ignorance
has been imputed to us in respect of several matters
relating to the Greek on which we were engaged, let
us now leave our critics, and deal with these reasonable
questions. First, what was the general knowledge,
on the part of the Revisers, of the character and
peculiarities of New Testament Greek? Secondly,
what is the amount of the knowledge relative to New
Testament Greek that has been acquired since the publication
of the revision? and thirdly, to what extent does
this recently acquired knowledge affect the correctness
and fidelity of the renderings that have been adopted
by the Revisers? If these three questions are
plainly answered we shall have dealt fully and fairly
with the doubts that have been expressed or implied
as to the correctness of the revision.
First, then, as to the general knowledge
which the revisers had of the character and peculiarities
of the Greek of the New Testament.
This question could not perhaps be
more fairly and correctly dealt with than by Bishop
Westcott in the opening words of his chapter on Exactness
in Grammatical Detail, in the valuable work to which
I have already referred. What he states probably
expresses very exactly the general view taken by the
great majority, if not by all, of the Revisers in
regard of the Greek of the New Testament. What
the Bishop says of the language is this: “that
it is marked by unique characteristics. It is
separated very clearly, both in general vocabulary
and in construction, from the language of the LXX,
the Greek Version of the Old Testament, which was
its preparation, and from the Greek of the Fathers
which was its development .”
If we accept this as a correct statement
of the general knowledge of the Revisers as to the
language of the Greek Testament, we naturally ask
further, on what did they rely for the correct interpretation
of it. The answer can readily be given, and
it is this: Besides their general knowledge of
Greek which, in the case of the large majority, was
very great, their knowledge of New Testament Greek
was distinctly influenced by the grammatical views
of Professor Winer, of whose valuable grammar of the
Greek Testament one of our Company, as I have mentioned
in my first Address, had been a well-known and successful
translator. Though his name was not very frequently
brought up in our discussions, the influence his grammar
exerted among us, directly and indirectly, was certainly
great; but it went no further than grammatical details.
His obvious gravitation to the idea of New Testament
Greek forming a sort of separate department of its
own probably never was shared, to any perceptible
extent, by any one of us. We did not enter very
far into these matters. We knew by every day’s
working experience that New Testament Greek differed
to some extent from the Greek to which we had been
accustomed, and from the Septuagint Greek to which
from time to time we referred. But further than
this we did not go, nor care to go. We had quite
enough on our hands. We had a very difficult
task to perform, we had to revise under prescribed
conditions a version which needed revision almost in
every verse, and we had no time to enter into questions
that did not then appear to bear directly on our engrossing
and responsible work.
But now it must be distinctly admitted
that recent investigation and, to a certain extent,
recent discoveries have cast so much new light on New
Testament Greek that it becomes a positive duty to
take into consideration what has been disclosed to
us by the labours of the last fifteen years as to
New Testament Greek, and then fairly to face the question
whether the particular labours of the Revisers have
been seriously affected by it. Let us bear in
mind, however, that it may be quite possible that
a largely increased knowledge of the position which
what used to be called Biblical Greek now occupies
may be clearly recognized, and yet only comparatively
few changes necessitated by it in syntactic details
and renderings. But let us not anticipate.
What we have now to do is to ascertain the nature
and amount of the disclosures and new knowledge to
which I have alluded.
This may be briefly stated as emanating
from a very large amount of recent literature on post-classical
Greek, and from a careful and scientific investigation
of the transition from the earlier post-classical
to the later, and thence to the modern Greek of the
present time. Such an investigation, illustrated
as it has been by the voluminous collection of the
Inscriptions, and the already large and growing collection
of the Papyri, has thrown indirectly considerable
light on New Testament Greek, and has also called out
three works, each of a very important character, and
posterior to the completion of the Revision, which
deal directly with the Greek of the New Testament.
These three works I will now specify.
The first, which is still in progress,
and has not, I think, yet received a translator, is
the singularly accurate, and in parts corrective,
edition of Winer’s “Grammar” by Prof.
Schmiedel. The portion on the article is generally
recognized as of great value and importance.
The second work is the now well-translated
“Bible Studies” of Dr. Deissmann of Heidelberg
. This remarkable work, of which the full
title is “Contributions, chiefly from Papyri
and Inscriptions, to the History of the Language,
the Literature, and the Religion of Hellenistic Judaism,
and Primitive Christianity,” contains not only
a clear estimate of the nature of New Testament Greek,
but also a large and instructive vocabulary of about
160 words and expressions in the New Testament, most
of which receive in varying degrees illustration from
the Papyri, and other approximately contemporary sources.
It must be noted, however, that the writer himself
specifies that his investigations “have been,
in part, arranged on a plan which is polemical .”
This avowal must, to some extent, affect our full
acceptance of all the results arrived at in this striking
and laborious work.
The third work is a “Grammar
of New Testament Greek” by the well-known and
distinguished scholar, Dr. Blass, and is deserving
of the fullest attention from every earnest student
of the Greek Testament. It has been excellently
translated by Mr. St. John Thackeray, of the Education
Department . It is really hardly possible
to speak too highly of this helpful and valuable work.
Its value consists in this that it has
been written, on the one hand, by an accomplished classical
scholar, and, on the other hand, by one who is thoroughly
acquainted with the investigations of the last fifteen
years. As his Introduction clearly shows, he
fully accepts the estimate that is now generally entertained
of the Greek of the New Testament, viz. that
it is no isolated production, as regards language,
that had no historic relation to the Greek of the
past or of the future. It was not, to any great
extent, derived from the Greek translations
of the Old Testament often, as Dr. Blass
says, slavishly literal nor from the literary
language of the time, but was the spoken Greek of
the age to which it belonged, modified by the position
and education of the speaker, and also to some extent,
though by no means to any large extent, by the Semitic
element which, from time to time, discloses itself
in the language of the inspired writers. This
last-written epithet, which I wittingly introduce,
must not be lost sight of by the Christian student.
Dr. Blass quite admits that the language
of the Greek Testament may be rightly treated in connexion
with the discoveries in Egypt furnished by the Papyri;
but he has also properly maintained elsewhere
that the books of the New Testament form a special
group to be primarily explained by itself.
Greatly as we are indebted to Dr. Deissmann for his
illustrations, especially in regard of vocabulary,
we must read with serious caution, and watch all attempts
to make Inscriptions or Papyri do the work of an interpretation
of the inner meaning of God’s Holy Word which
belongs to another realm, and to the self-explanations
which are vouchsafed to us in the reverent study of
the Book not of Humanity (as Deissmann
speaks of the New Testament) but of Life.
I have now probably dealt sufficiently
with the second of the three questions which I have
put forward for our consideration. I have stated
the general substance of the knowledge which has been
permitted to come to us since the revision was completed.
I now pass onward to the third and most difficult
question equitably to answer, “To what extent
does this newly-acquired knowledge affect the correctness
and fidelity of the revision of the Authorised Version
of the New Testament?” It is easy enough to
speak of “ignorance” on the part of the
Revisers, especially after what I have specified in
the answer to the question on which we have just been
meditating; but the real and practical question is
this, “If the Revisers had all this knowledge
when they were engaged on their work, would it have
materially affected their revision?”
To this more limited form of the question
I feel no difficulty in replying, that I am fully
and firmly persuaded that it would not have
materially affected the revision; and my grounds for
returning this answer depend on these two considerations:
first, that the full knowledge which some of us had
of Winer’s Grammar, and the general knowledge
that was possessed of it by the majority, certainly
enabled us to realize that the Greek on which we were
engaged, while retaining very many elements of what
was classical, had in it also not only many signs of
post-classical Greek, but even of usages which we
now know belong to later developments. These
later developments, all of which are, to some extent,
to be recognized in the Greek Testament, such as the
disappearance of the optative, the use of [Greek text]
with the subjunctive in the place of the infinitive,
the displacement of [Greek text], the interchange of
[Greek text] and [Greek text], of [Greek text] and
[Greek text], the use of compound forms without any
corresponding increase of meaning, the extended usage
of the aorist, the wider sphere of the accusative,
and many similar indications of later Greek all
these were so far known to us as to exercise a cautionary
influence on our revision, and to prevent us overpressing
the meaning of words and forms that had lost their
original definiteness.
My second reason for the answer I
have given to the question is based on the accumulating
experience we were acquiring in our ten years of labour,
and our instinctive avoidance of renderings which in
appearance might be precise, but did in reality exaggerate
the plain meaning intended by the Greek that we were
rendering. Sometimes, but only rarely, we fell
into this excusable form of over-rendering.
Perhaps the concluding words of Mark xi will
supply an example. At any rate, the view taken
by Blass would seem to suggest a less literal
form of translation.
When I leave the limited form of answer,
and face the broad and general question of the extent
to which our recently-acquired knowledge affects the
correctness and fidelity of the revision, I can only
give an answer founded on an examination of numerous
passages in which I have compared the comments of
Dr. Blass in his Grammar, and of Dr. Deissmann in his
“Bible Studies with the renderings of the Revisers.”
And the answer is this, that the number of cases
in which any change could reasonably be required has
been so small, so very small, that the charge of any
real ignorance, on the part of the Revisers, of the
Greek on which they were engaged, must be dismissed
as utterly and entirely exaggerated. We have
now acquired an increased knowledge of the character
of the Greek of the New Testament, and of the place
it holds in the historical transition of the language
from the earlier post-classical to the later developments
of the language, but this knowledge, interesting and
instructive as it may be, leaves the principles of
correctly translating it practically intact.
In this latter process we must deal with the language
of the Greek Testament as we would deal with the language
of any other Greek book, and make the book, as far
as we have the means of doing so, its own interpreter.
Having thus shown in broad and general
terms, as far as I have been able to do so, that we
may still, notwithstanding the twenty years that have
passed away, regard the Revised Version of the Greek
Testament as a faithfully executed revision, and its
renderings such as may be accepted with full Christian
confidence, I now turn to the easier, but not less
necessary, duty of bringing before you some considerations
why this Version and, with it, the Revised Version
of the Old Testament, should be regularly used in
the public services of our Mother Church.