is always elegant and nervous, and for the most part very harmonious, the words are all plain and common, no affectation of learned terms, or of words of Greek or Latin etymology." 11 .... "Those who have compared most of the European translations with the original, have not scrupled to say, that the English translation of the Bible, made under the direction of King James the First, is the most accurate and faithful of the whole. Nor is this its only praise: the translators have seized the very spirit and soul of the original, and expressed this almost everywhere with pathos and energy. Besides, our translators have not only made a standard translation, but they have made their translation the standard of our language." 12 "Now I am far indeed from undervaluing that mere knowledge of the Scripture which is imparted to the population thus promiscuously. At least, in England, it has to a certain point made up for great and grievous losses in Christianity. The reiteration again and again, in fixed course in the public service, of the words of the inspired teachers under both covenants, and that in grave, majestic English, has in matter of fact been to our people a vast benefit. It has attuned their minds to religious thought; it has given them a high moral standard; it has served them in associating religion with compositions, which, even humanly considered, are among the most sublime and beautiful ever written; especially it has impressed upon them the`series of Divine Providences in behalf of man from his creation to his end, and, above all, the words, deeds, and several sufferings of Him in whom all the Providences of God centre." 13 This long array of weighty testimony concerning the merits of the Authorized Version suggests at least the propriety of great caution in expressing an adverse opinion on any part of that noble work. But as the Revision of it has made considerable progress, and the Revised New Testament has been before the world since May, 1881, what remains to be examined will be presented in a form which, it is hoped, will enable the reader to reach his own conclusions both on the actual merits or demerits of the Authorized Version, and of the Revision. With that end in view the inquiry 11 Dr. James Beattie, in Forbes's Life of Dr. Beattie, ii. p. 198. turns upon these heads: 1. The critical apparatus used by the translators of the Authorized Version. 2. The nature and origin of the improvements made upon former versions. 3. The alleged blemishes, imperfections, infelicities, and archaisms remaining in the version, and necessitating revision. 1. The Critical Apparatus at their command embraced not only the editions of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament, already enumerated in the chapters relating to the earlier versions, but also the interlinear Latin translation of the Hebrew text, based on that of Pagninus, added to the Antwerp Polyglot by Arius Montanus, 1569-1572, and the celebrated original Latin translation of the Old Testament by Immanuel Tremellius, 1575-1579, revised and extended to the Apocrypha by Francis Junius, his son-in-law, with a translation of the Syriac New Testament by the former, and a Latin translation of the Greek Testament by Theodore Beza, 1590; two editions of the latter, in folio, were printed in London in 1593 and 1597. There is abundant evidence a, that King James's translators were not independent of these works, and 6, that they were not free from caprice in their adoption of various readings, e. g., Is. ix. 3, where the clause "not increased the joy," contradicts the remainder of the verse, from their disregard of the Masoretic notation to him in place of not, the not belonging to the margin, and the reading to him being required to complete the sense of the text; they probably followed Tremellius who renders with the Vulgate non magnificasti lætitiam; in Judg. xviii. 30, they overlooked the presence of the suspended n in the proper name which they render Manasseh, instead of Moses, probably again misled by Tremellius who gives the former rendering, against the Vulgate which rightly translates Moysi. Their philological helps in the Old Testament terminated with Buxtorf's Lexicon, 1607, and his Hebrew grammar, 1609; they had the bare Hebrew text without more light shed on it by the ancient versions except that derived from such editions of the Septuagint and the Vulgate, as were then circulating, the Sixtine edition of 1587, being the latest of the former, and the Sixtine (1590) and Clementine (1592-3) editions the latest of the latter version. The Chaldee Paraphrase of Onkelos (1482, 1546, and 1590) was also available to them, but the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac and Arabic versions, and the fragmentary Ethiopic and Persian translations were unknown to them. For the Greek text of the New Testament they had the various editions of Beza from 1560 to 1598, and the fifth edition of Beza, 1598, is probably that which they used, as well as the third edition of Stephens, 1550-51; they likewise consulted the Complutensian Polyglot, 1514, the different editions of Erasmus, 1516-1535, Aldus, 1518, Colinæus, 1534, Plantin, 1572, the Vulgate and Beza's Latin version of 1556. The common statement is that the Greek text of the Authorized Version of 1611 agrees in eighty-one places with Beza against Stephens, in about twenty-one with Stephens against Beza, and that in twenty-nine places the translators follow the Complutensian, Erasmus, or the Vulgate. To state this somewhat differently, the Greek text used by King James's translators was that found in the editions of Erasmus (five, 1516-35), of Stephens (four, 1546–51); Beza (four in folio, 1565-98, five in smaller form, 1565-1604), and the Complutensian Polyglot (1514, published 1522). Erasmus had for his text one valuable MS. of the Gospels; Stephens two (D. and L.); Beza had also D. of the Gospels and Acts, and D. (the Clermont MS.) of the Pauline Epistles; but they hardly used them. As already stated, the text of the A. V. agrees more nearly with the later editions of Beza than with any other; but Beza followed Stephens (1550) very closely, and Stephens is hardly more than a reprint of the fourth edition of Erasmus (1527). Erasmus had for the basis fourteenth century. of his text in the Gospels an inferior MS. of the fifteenth century, and in Acts and the Epistles one of the thirteenth or In Revelation he had only the inaccurate transcript of mutilated MS. (wanting the last six verses) of little value, the real and supposed defects of which he supplied by translating from the Latin Vulgate into Greek. For his later editions he had altogether three MSS. of the Gospels, four of the Acts and Catholic Epistles, and five of the Pauline Epistles, together with the text of the Aldine edition of 1518, and of the Complutensian Polyglot, neither of much critical value. In select passages he had also collations of some other MSS. The result of the whole is that in a considerable number of cases-not of great importance—the reading of the A. V. is supported by no known Greek manuscript whatever, but rests on an error of Erasmus or Beza; (e. g., Acts ix. 5, 6; Rom. vii. 6; 1 Pet. iii. 20; Rev. i. 9, 11; ii. 3, 20, 24; iii. 2; v. 10, 14; xv. 3; xvi. 5; xvii. 8, 16; xviii. 2, etc.) and it is safe to say that in more than a thousand instances the text used by the translators of the A. V. requires to be corrected by what is now known to be the true text (condensed from Professor Abbott's Paper on the New Testament Text in AngloAmerican Bible Revision, New York, 1879).* * Dr. Scrivener's The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the text followed in the Authorized Version together with the variations adopted in the Revised Version, Cambridge, 1881, is a timely, judicious, and very valuable volume, deserving to be in the hands of all interested in the textual basis of the versions in question. Tremellius' and Beza's Latin versions being often referred to, I subjoin a passage from each in parallel columns with the Vulgate and Authorized Versions: Vulgate. 10 Quis est in vobis, qui claudat ostia et incendat altare meum gratuito? Non est mihi voluntas in vobis, dicit Dominus ex MALACHI I. 10, II. Quis etiam inter vos est *See also, p. 379. Authorized Version. Who is there even among IC you that would shut the doors for nought? Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I As to modern versions of the period, they had besides those previously enumerated, the Genevan French Bible (1587-8), chiefly rendered by Bertram, who had the assistance of Beza, have no pleasure in you, Authorized Version. Well, because of unbelief 20 for if God spared not the 21 Or, for them. |