The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1885-05-18
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
QUEEN VICTORIA PRESENTED WITH
THE FIRST REVISED COPY.
Completion of a Work That Has Occupied
Fourteen Years-Hell Abolished and
sheol neutrality-suspicious.
Of the Changes.

LONDON, May 1s.--Friday afternoon the
very first copy issued of the complete new
version of the Bible was presented to the
queen, separated into five gorgeous volumes,
royal edition. AT midnight copies in ex-
pensive form were delivered to the
press for comment The public here
and in America will be given an
opportunity to purchase it next Tuesday,
which, by a remarkable coincidence, will be
the Feast of Pentecost, which commemor
ates, according to tradition, the revelation
on Mount Sinai of the Decalog The COM
mlttee OF revision was appointed by the Es.
tabished Church convocation the 9th of May,
1870. OF the sixteen members then appointed
only six survive. The revisers sat alto
gether 92 days of six hours. The whole
work was gone over in session three times
The first time bare majority carried an
alteration The alterations were then
printed and circulated among the revisers,
who had the advantage before the second
oevision began of suggestions by the Ameri-
can revisers. On the second revision two
thirds majority was necessary to confirm
The alterations The third revision was de,
voted TO objections and points reserved.
As Tor the general result, when the whole
work is examined it will be found that the
revisers have on the whole been very con-
sentative. The alterations in the Old Testa-
ment are much fewer in proportion than
those made in the New Testament There
have been very few-merely verbal
alterations. The revised Old Testament
is almost exactly the same length
as the Old one. There are important
alterations in the arrangement of chapters
which are printed in paragraphs, so as t.
, keep the consecutive sense, but are not di
vided into verses. Political passages arr
| printed like blank verse This isa specimen
of the blank verse:
Create in me clean heart, o God,
And renew high spirit within me;
Cast me not away from Thy presence,
And take not Thy holy spirit from me;
| Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation
And uphold me with free spirit.
The first axiom of the revised translation
was: "Cling to the pure native signiicanc
| of the wortlS7
Adam and Eve only take their names afte
the fall Before, they are man and wife
No changes in diction are made in the frs
chapter of Genesis TO aid or puzzle debater
on faith AMI science. The old account o
the deluge is left as it was
The Mosaic books are but little touched
The Joshua miracle Of the sun and the moo
are left intact Joh i mainly nrintad i
blank verse.
Il know that my Rejeemer liveth.
stluds, but the marginal note destroys q
;ts sio,r, fcarra in relation IN Tin, Mossi,b
90, that mine adversary had written
hooko hecornas. That had the iodjct,nen
| nina, nj ver-ar, had vritten
.lIos+ ,h,,. ,i.lJ his ,,.l, VITA, tb,,n,lo,.l
.h,,,rr,, =, .t,itt, :, ,,,i,,.,ri,,cr ,,,o,,ls
"I,9l ,, .,..,,,,,,.,'t.1 M, MI, NJ.
a.. -, ;, a,,, +l,o III.
80 -, ,i+,'t,I tl,,.,,,-io,t M az,
avs. %, N Sl.rJs viii now bacon,a a mo,
nIeasant nras, of The angry irreverent ma,
:. Tho italics Of fnr,oar afit;ons viold 70 con
non t,.,Ia in tfo tavt
/ M, -. ,r1 1;,.;l,l T,o,., ., g..
;,,,,ar+ant .h,n,,os ,,,ade in then, and tho.
III ,1ital,,ol,, s,,,rr,,lo,s COR, The moo
tifnI palm viii THE Lord is NV She
hard ra,noips untouched as does tho mas
,es in Psalm xxiv beginning. cliff nm vo,
heads. O We rates7 but in Psalm xxxyii
.'The wicked man no longer spreadeth hir
self like a rreen bav tree y hut rs IN ora,
tree in its native soilr: nor in Psalm xiv.
the Kinc's daugbter said To Ina 4all otorio
within y INIT aTha Kings donrbtar with
the nalace is all glorious"
A weu-known verse in Psalm xcii. no
reads. The DAYS of our wears are thr
SCORE and ten or even nv reason of streup
fonr score wears vet is their nride hut lab
and sorrow for it is gone and we fly away
The Proverbs and Song of Solomon a
arranged as poetry and trihingly interior
with.
A celebrated passage in Isaiah now read
"As one from whom men hide their face
was despised, and we esteemed him not
The Ohristology of the Old Testament
plmnst entirely unaffected By the revise
The crucial passage. Isaiah vii, "A: l
hold a virgin shall conceive and bear
SOM remains unchanged except that t