Morning journal and courier., 1881-05-21

l Spanish mountains) and afterward By Beza. l the reformer and none of these used any
 ancient manuscripts, fact, the only an 1 cient one then known, though Beza owned
 it, he cared nothing for On the other hand | the present revisers have had great numbers of manuscripts to consult, including five dat ing from the middle of the fourth into the l sixth century, and these ancient manuscripts have all been published in fac-simile and for | years have been subjected to the closest com | parison by scholars in Europe and America Textual criticism is a science of this aoe and | scholars have already long anticipated great proportion of the changes which the revisers have made and have given the fruit of these
 Iabors to the public in the great commenta l ries which have made all previous treatment of the Bible text obsolete and dull To their l work the decision of so large body of emi nent scholars has given the sanction of au thorltative agreement, and in most respects | 1t will be received with the acceptance of re- assuring conviction
 Some of the changes are of the first mo-
 ment, and present thoughts and suggestions of deep interest; and the chief criticism and distaste will be shown at the merely literary character of the revision. Of the 15O, ,O0O or more various readings in the New Testament the immense majority are of no practical inn portance. In this number are rsckoned little errors in spelling insertion of small particles
 
 others. The natural mistakes of transcribers during the long period in which the scrip lures were multiplied in manuscripts, and the1r Wllful teratlons. in correcting the autnors grammar, or improving his facts, 1 or amending his doctrine, or conforming one parallel passage to another, have been 1 the causes of these various readings For instance, some subscriber coming to l. Corinthians vi: 20, was not satisfied with PauPs Therefore glorify God in your body" which perfectly carried out his thought but must add his own tag and in your spir.+. which are 'God' ga reasonable thing to say somewhere else, but quite out of place
 there. Where Paul said (Romans viii II
 ''There is therefore now no condemnation to
 them that are ill Christ Jesus," the cop,ist
 tackled on the coda ''who walk not after the Hee h but after the spirit" As Erasn ua
 hadn't any complete Greek manuscript in
 making up his text he had to fill out the
 lacking passages by translating them back from the Latin of the Vulgate into Greek, by
 which means it happens that many words, and meanings with them, in the original of our authorized version, are the invention of that learned man. The setting such matters right was obviously thing to do.
 Among the more important changes due to changes of text we select few from Dr. Roberts book The passage closing the gos- pei of Mark, beginning at the ninth verse of the last chapter, is divided by considerable space from what precedes, and for the req son that Mark cannot have written 1t vet the revisers believe it a worthy and canonical appendix and therefore do not banish it to the margin. Similar treatment they award to the beautiful incident of the woman taken in adultery now in the 8th chapter of John they inclose it in brackets; believing it an authentic narrative, though not properly be- longing to the gospel of John. The rejec- tion of this story would have been really unjustihable, for any thing more perfectly characteristic of Jesus does not appear in the biographies. The omission of the doxology from the Lords prayer will shock many; but probably few will not be resigned to the loss of the old trinitarisn proof-text of the "three that bear record in heaven'' q. John V: T. 8; it has made a whole library of controversy in it's day. but it never had any right to place in scripture Another notable change Is in l.
 Timothy iii: 16 where, And without con- troversy great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, is altered to read 'sHe who was manifested in the fesh''
 Another class of corrections is in rendering the meaning of the Greek words, as where 'tSimon the Canaanite'' is changed to show that this Simon not of the race of Canaan, but merely one of the Jewish scots of zealots One such change relieves the disciples with Jesus on the mount of transfguration from the stigma of going to sleep; for instead e '.When they were awake" the revision has it s'Yet having remained awake" great inl- provement is in John X: II, 15, where this is the way the revision reads T am the good shepherd and know mine own and mine own know me, even as the father knoweth me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep" Dr. Roberts says concern ing the response of Festus to Paul (Acts xxv1: 2S) 'sIt is with reluctance that we here abandon the rendering of the author ized version Almost thou persuadest me to ho hric Ic q tnyf frnO vxyhia many eloquent and edifSing sermons have been preached, but the Greek will not tolerate it." The new rendering is, "With but little persuasion thou wouIdst fain make me Christian" In RevelationsS the ''beasts'' that cry 'Holy, Holy, Holy ken of as ''iving creatures" as preachers have for years past told their focks The Sunday school lessons in vogue are busily instructing the young that the place where the rich man lifted up his eyes and saw Lazarus in Abraham's bosom was liter ally ''helln n as the text has it but the revis- CTS have rightly changed that word for the Greek "hades :" for Abraham and Dives and Lazarus are all in the place of departed spir- it's. Now the prayer book ought to be amended in conformity, and good Anglicans and Episcopalians no longer say, ''He de- scended into hell.
 Dr. Roberts has interesting chapters on the grammatical emendations, some of which seem more nice than wise, and to indicate little too much meddling with the form of the text made sacred through tradition, and which it was not absolutely necessary to set straight in all the instances in which 1t has been done. A great deal of discomfort will be felt and opposition raised because of the interference with familiar wording; and there is nothing so hard to placate as sentimental prejudices; for which very reason, though they should never be allowed to preserve an error or obscure 8 truth of any consequence, they might well have been respected in all minor matters. For instance, in the little matter of changing Therefore, glorify God in your body'' into 'sGlorify God, therefore, in your body" there is needless offense in the transportation, besides the awkwardness of two commas In fact the revisers have plainly 8 penchant for commas, which IS indulged to the great injury of the dignity and stateliness of the familiar version. This grammarians $ way of looking at the Bible is certainly mistaken. and so far as 1t Is pur- sued so far the revisers have done ill But we wait the arrival of the book itself before dwelling upon this The correcting of ar chaisms and doubtful phrases, the uniform spelling of the proper names, the dlneren- cling of Greek words, hitherto translated alike, are points to which can now barely al- Jude. Of the part borne by the American re- visers which is outlined in brief but excel lent chapter at the close of Dr. Roberts Companion, there will also be time to speak later. Presently we shall all be reading the revision of the New Testament. but for the Old Testament we have yet to wait three or four years. Whatever there is to complain of, we cannot doubt but that it will receive the respect due to the work of so many emi- nent and devout men, and in its new form give it's readers fresh impression which must tend to exalt the esteem of all and deepen the devotion of Christians for the purest and loftiest of the sacred books of mankind.
 ~[Dr. Roberts book, spoken of above, is for sale in this city by F. T. Jarman.
 '.ElGHMIE PATENT SHIRT,"