The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1881-06-02
The REVISED NEW TESTAMENT.


A dispatch from London gives the
main points of Standards review of the
/ Revised New Testament. The writer of
the article asserts that whatever scholars
may think of the labors of the reviSers
the impression produced upon the pub
lie mind is one of disappointment and
dissatisfaction. 1t is deeply 10 be re-
GREETED that the revisers, judging by the
work just published, have apparently
forgotten the condition on which the
work was entrusted to them 1t Is obvi-
Gus that great many of the alterations
adopted have been proved by the reason
OF mere literary criticism, which makes
rather sceptical as to the infallibility, or
even good taste of the revisers.
| Where no material Change in the sense
ur substance of 'the authorized version
has been shown 10 be required by the
revisers for the proper construction of
the original, they have nevertheless,
| thought themselves justified in correct
ing the English and improving the gram
| mar of the paragraphs which have
struck deep root in the hearts and MEM
cries of the English people One word
has been substituted for another at the
whim of the New Testament Company,
modes and lenses have been shifted
about 10 satisfy some pedantic scheme of
syniiatical symmetry. The sentence
treasured up in the popular mind,
and enriched beyond description
by the pathetic associations of
OF hundreds of years have been tortured
and crucitled into precise grammatical
accord with the latest refinements by
critical labor upon the comparison of The
early manuscript texts, and thus been
robbed OF all its true value. The Sys-
tenn upon which the revisers appear to
have acted is in our judgment altogeth-
er erroneous and deplorable. The writ |
er then points out the position held by |
the Scriptures among English speaking |
people. "They have been known 10 |
them and loved by them for centuries"
he says, land it is rash and reckless to |
shake this noble growth of centuries by /
attempting to harmonize it with the /
correctness of selfopinioned scholarship,
or regulate il by the doubtful standard |
of taste accepted by motley combine
ton of theOlogians and professors"
Even the Lords prayer, which every
English speaking child learns to lisp at
Its mothers knee. has not been spared |
The reviewers have handled il as bold |
might handle a noIOriously
corrupt chorus IN Eumenides. The
st. Paul's praise of charity, I'M
in its own kind, for ringing
and rythmical eloQuencc in the old YER
BILE by the senscleSs substitution of the
word love for charity The meaning
is really obscured rather than elucidated
by this change while the music of the
sentence is Irretrievably lost. Altera-
lions of the dietiOn of the old YER
sion involving no gain In sense or
a perceptiblc one, swarm in !
-he revised edition, and in almost |
every instance it is impossible not to
eel that the original translators, howev- {
n inferior to the present revisOrs in pre- s
Else and exhaustive scholarship, were in
initeiy their superiors in the rare and n
precious art of writing musical and mas
:uline English prose. Had they purged |
he sacred text of errors which had crept '
ntO il, and placed where 1t was neccssa-
y the yarIorlum reading in the margin,
hey would have performed useful and '
acceptable work; but in their efforts to
ittain dry and merely nominal accura-
" of expression they have so revised s
he noblest book in the English language {
IS to deprive it of much of its beauty, {
md they have destroyed many of its his
orical associations
In conclusion, the writer says, it re- I
Mains now for the revisers to revise the I
ext they have produced. If this new l
'crsion is ever to be generally used, and
o supercede the authorized version,
many of the alterations that have been i
made must be discarded.