translation in hand, and to move and charge as many as being skilful in the tongues and having taken pains in that kind, to send his particular observations to the company either at Westminster, Cambridge or Oxford. (13) The directors in each company to the deans of Westminster and Chester for that place; and the king’s professors in the Hebrew or Greek in either university. (14) These translations to be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishops’ Bible; viz. Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, Geneva. (15) Besides the said directors before mentioned, three or four of the most ancient and grave divines in either of the universities, not employed in translating, to be assigned by the vice-chancellor upon conference with [the] rest of the heads to be overseers of the translations, as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the fourth rule above specified.”
It is not possible to determine in how far all these rules were adhered to. All we know of the way this noble work was carried out is contained in the Preface, where Dr Miles Smith, in 1612 bishop of Gloucester, in the name of his fellow-workers gives an account of the manner and spirit in which it was done:—
“Neither did we run ouer the worke with that posting haste that the Septuagint did, if that be true which is reported of them, that they finished it in 72 days. . . . The worke hath . . . cost the workemen, as light as it seemeth, the paines of twise seuen times seuentie two dayes and more . . . Truly (good Christian Reader), we neuer thought from the beginning, that we should neede to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one . . . but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not iustly to be excepted against. . . . To that purpose there were many chosen, that were greater in other mens eyes than in their owne, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise.... Neither did wee thinke much to consult the Translators or Commentators, Chaldee, Hebrewe, Syrian, Greeke, or Latine, no mor the Spanish, French, Italian or Dutch [German]; neither did we disdaine to reuise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anuitl that which we had hammered: but hauing and vsing as great helpes as were needfull, and fearing no reproch for slownesse, nor coueting praise for expedition, wee haue at the length, through the good hand of the Lord vpon vs, brought the worke to that passe that you see.”
From the above it appears that the actual work of revision occupied about two years and nine months, an additional nine months being required for the final preparation for press. The edition appeared at length in 1611, the full title being as follows: The Holy Bible, conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues, & with the former Translations diligently compared and reuised, by his Maiesties speciall comandement. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Maiestie. Anno Dom. 1611.[1] Since that time many millions of this revised translation have been printed, and the general acceptance of it by all English-speaking people of whatever denomination is a testimony to its excellence.
Still the work of improving and correcting went on through the centuries, and a modern copy of the Authorized Version shows no inconsiderable departures from the standard edition of 1611. Dr Scrivener imputes some of those differences “to oversight and negligence . . . but much the greater part of them” he holds to be “deliberate changes, introduced silently and without authority by men whose very names are often unknown.” (A. C. P.)
More ambitious attempts at amending the new version were not lacking, but they all proved fruitless, until in February 1870 the Convocation of Canterbury appointed a committee to consider the subject of revision. The report of this committee, presented in May, was adopted, to The Revised Version.the effect “that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong”; and shortly afterwards two companies were formed for the revision of the Authorized Version of the Old and New Testaments.
These companies consisted of the following:—1. For the Old Testament:—(α) Appointed by Convocation.—Connop Thirlwall, bishop of St David’s (d. 1875); Alfred Ollivant (1798–1882), bishop of Llandaff; E. Harold Browne (1811–1891), bishop of Ely; Christopher Wordsworth, bishop of Lincoln; and Lord Arthur Hervey (1808–1894), bishop of Bath and Wells; Archdeacon H. J. Rose (d. 1873); William Selwyn (1806–1875), canon of Ely and Lady Margaret professor at Cambridge; Dr John Jebb (1805–1886), canon of Hereford; and Dr William Kay (1820–1886). (β) Invited.—Dr William Lindsay Alexander (1808–1884), congregational minister; Thomas Chenery (1826–1884), professor of Arabic at Oxford, and afterwards (1877) editor of The Times; Frederick Charles Cook (1810–1889), canon of Exeter; Professor A. B. Davidson; Dr Benjamin Davies (1814–1875), professor of oriental and classical languages at Stepney Baptist College; the Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, congregationalist; the Rev. Frederick Field (1801–1885), fellow of Trinity, Cambridge; Dr C. D. Ginsburg; the Rev. Dr Gotch of Bristol; Archdeacon Benjamin Harrison (1808–1887), Hebraist; the Rev. Stanley Leathes (1830–1900), professor of Hebrew at King’s College, London; Professor M’Gill; Canon Robert Payne Smith (1819–1895), regius professor of divinity at Oxford, dean of Canterbury (1870); Professor J. J. S. Perowne, afterwards bishop of Worcester; the Rev. Edward Hayes Plumtre (1821–1891), professor of exegesis at King’s College, London, afterwards dean of Wells; Canon E. Bouverie Pusey; William Wright (1830–1889), the orientalist; W. Aldis Wright, Cambridge. Of these Canons Cook and Pusey declined to serve, and ten members died during the progress of the work. The secretary of the company was Mr W. Aldis Wright, fellow of Trinity, Cambridge.
2. For the New Testament:—(α) Appointed by Convocation.—Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Winchester; Charles J. Ellicott, bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; and George Moberly, bishop of Salisbury; Dr Edward Bickersteth (1814–1892), prolocutor of the lower house of convocation; Henry Alford, dean of Canterbury, and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, dean of Westminster; Joseph Williams Blakesley (1808–1885), canon of Canterbury, and (1872) dean of Lincoln. (β) Invited.—The Rev. Dr Joseph Angus, president of the Stepney Baptist College; Dr David Brown; Richard Chenevix Trench, archbishop of Dublin; the Rev. Dr John Eadie (1810–1876), Presbyterian; the Rev. F. J. A. Hort; the Rev. W. G. Humphry (1815–1886), vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London; the Rev. Benjamin Hall Kennedy, canon of Ely; William Lee (1815–1883), archdeacon of Dublin, and professor of ecclesiastical history in the university; J. B. Lightfoot, afterwards bishop of Durham; Professor William Milligan; the Rev. William Fieldian Moulton (1835–1898), Wesleyan biblical scholar; Dr J. H. Newman; the Rev. Samuel Newth (1821–1898), congregationalist, professor of ecclesiastical history at, and afterwards president of, New College, London; Dr A. Roberts; the Rev. G. Vance Smith; Dr Robert Scott; the Rev. F. H. A. Scrivener (1813–1891), rector of St Gerrans, Cornwall; Charles Wordsworth, bishop of St Andrews; Dr W. H. Thompson; Dr S. P. Tregelles; Dr C. J. Vaughan; Canon Westcott. Of these, Dr Thompson and Dr Newman declined to serve. Dean Alford, Dr Tregelles, Bishop Wilberforce and Dr Eadie were removed by death. Only the first vacancy was filled up. Dean Merivale was co-opted, and on his resignation Professor, afterwards Archdeacon, Edwin Palmer. The Rev. J. Troutbeck, minor canon of Westminster, acted as secretary.
Negotiations were opened with the leading scholars of the Protestant denominations in America, with the result that similar companies were formed in the United States. The work of the English revisers was regularly submitted to their consideration; their comments were carefully considered and largely adopted, and their divergences from the version ultimately agreed upon were printed in an appendix to the published work. Thus the Revised Version was the achievement of English-speaking Christendom as a whole; only the Roman Catholic Church, of the great English-speaking denominations, refused to take part in the undertaking. The Church of England, which had put forth the version of 1611, fitly initiated the work, but for its performance most wisely invited the help of the sister churches. The delegates of the Clarendon Press in Oxford, and the syndics of the Pitt Press in Cambridge, entered into a liberal arrangement with the revisers, by which the necessary funds were provided for all their expenses. On the completion of its work the New Testament company divided itself into three committees, working at London, Westminster and Cambridge, for the purpose of revising the Apocrypha.
The work of the Old Testament company was different in some important respects from that which engaged the attention of the New Testament company. The received Hebrew text has undergone but little emendation, and the revisers had before them substantially the same Massoretic text which was in the hands of the translators of 1611. It was felt that there was no sufficient justification to make any attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the authority of the versions. The Old Testament revisers were therefore spared much of the
- ↑ A reprint of this edition has been published by the Clarendon Press (Oxford, 1833).
