The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-11-27 00:00:00

REVISION OF THE BIBLE.

SEVERAL years ago a number of eminent scholars
of different denominations were appointed to sit
at Westminster Abbey, and revise the translation
of the Bible in common use. Amid the coming
and going of Parliaments, and the rise and fall
of Ministries, these men of letters have les-
sembled amid the calm quietude of the cloisters
of St. Peter's Cathedral Church, as the venerable
Abbey is officially designated, and have pursued
their important work. After a labour extending
over four hundred and seven days, or consider-
ably more than one whole year, the revisers have
finished with the New Testament. The results
cannot fail to be of great interest to every class
and every religious belief. The translation
which has just undergone revision has been in
use 270 years. The care with which it was
made, and its intrinsic excellence, are attested
by the favour with which it was at first received
and by the fact that, for nearly three centuries,
it has retained a firm hold on the affections of
English-speaking people. Its style is lofty, its
diction pure, its tone elevated while its quaint
and timple, but no lees elcquent phraseology
has become in a mapper part and parcel of our
language. Ittss undoubtedly tended to died,
those char ges which are constantly at work to
effect an alteration.in our form of speech. With-
out a common Bible, such a thing as an Ameri-
can or an Australian hceguage comes within the
range of possibility ; but so lone as one transla-
tion of the Sacred Book is used by the Anglo-
Saxon race throughout the world, there can be
no great practical divergence from the mother
tongue in either America or the colonies.
There were unquestionably many reasons for
the revision which has been carried out at a cost
of so much time and labour. Let us consider
for a moment what has happened since the early
years of the reign King James I. At that time
the American colonies of Great Britain were
scarcely known, and it was not until more thsn
a century and a half afterwards that this wide-
spreading people secured their independence.
A civil war in England, the depositien of a
dynasty, its restoration, its extinction, a blood-
less revolul ion, and the accession of the House
of Hanover—all these have been witnesssd since
Ole translation of the Bible in the time of King
James. Contrasting the United States in 1880
with the British colonies in 1610, there is more
than all the difference between the meanest vil-
lage and the greatest city in the world. no
United States have now a population larger by
ten millions than that of the United Kingdom.
Thus has the child outgrown the parent. Mean-
while however, that parent has plaided colonies,
whose people speak her own language, in every
part of the world. They are found in the North
Atlantic as well as in the southern ocean of !hat
name ; in the vast Pacific as well as amid the
blue waves of the Indian Ocean. The sounds
of the English tongue are heard all over the
glebe ; its influence is predominant in every
clime. Notwitstanding the many merits of our
English version of the Bible, and in spite of our
reference for the things of the past, and a very
natural reluctance to alter old familar language,
there were many reasons why a revision was riot
onl desirable but absolutely necessary if the
most venerable and important of books was to
be thoroughly intelligible to the, general reader.
For one thing, the ienglish of to-day i- very
different from that of the time of James 1.
Many words have become obsolete, and mere
bear a different signification from that which
attached to thew at the begining of the Beton-
teenth century. The translators of King James's
Bible displayed a research most creditable to the
times in which they lived ; at the same time the
balance of advantage is undoubtedly on the side
of the Biblical scholars of to-day.
No book has received such thorough and com-
plete study as the Bible. Learning of the
highest order has been brought to bear in its
elucidation. Light from various sources has
been thrown on every obecurc passage, and
nearly every branch of literature and science
has been called upon to render esistance. For
generations past has the work of research gone
'on, and there is not a verse of donhtful meaning
in the whole Book that has not been commented
upon time after time by brilliaut scholars. The
result of all these laboure is at tie disposal of
the modern critic; and in addition be has gnore
mously-increased facilities in the ya liable manu-
scripts that have come to light in recent times.
It being conceded that the time had come for
some change in the text oL the authorised ver-
sion, the question arose whether a reef transla-
tion or a simple revision would better answer
the purpose. The latter having been decided
upon, the reviews selected were men of learning
experience, and of different views ; while their
moderation and their representative character
will commend their work to the confidence of all
English-speaking Christians, who await the
issue of the now version with a considerable
degree ofi interest.