OF HOLY SCRIPTURE***


Transcribed from the 1901 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org





Addresses on the Revised
Version of Holy
Scripture.


                                    BY
                          C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D.,

                          BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER,
            AND HON. FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

          PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.

                                 LONDON:
                SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
       NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
                       BRIGHTON: 129 NORTH STREET.
                     NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
                                  1901.




PREFATORY NOTE.


The following Addresses form the Charge to the Archdeaconry of
Cirencester at the Visitation held at the close of October in the present
year.  The object of the Charge, as the opening words and the tenor of
the whole will abundantly indicate, is seriously to suggest the question,
whether the time has not now arrived for the more general use of the
Revised Version at the lectern in the public service of the Church.

                                                         C. J. GLOUCESTER.

_October_, 1901.




CONTENTS.
                                                                      PAGE
            ADDRESS I.  EARLY HISTORY OF REVISION                        5
               ,, II.  LATER HISTORY OF REVISION                       17
              ,, III.  HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT                           48
               ,, IV.  NATURE OF THE RENDERINGS                        81
                ,, V.  PUBLIC USE OF THE VERSION                      117





ADDRESS I.
EARLY HISTORY OF REVISION.


As there now seem to be sufficient grounds for thinking that ere long the
Revised Version of Holy Scripture will obtain a wider circulation and
more general use than has hitherto been accorded to it, it seems
desirable that the whole subject of the Revised Version, and its use in
the public services of the Church, should at last be brought formally
before the clergy and laity, not only of this province, but of the whole
English Church.

Twenty years have passed away since the appearance of the Revised Version
of the New Testament, and the presentation of it by the writer of these
pages to the Convocation of Canterbury on May 17, 1881.  Just four more
years afterwards, viz. on April 30, 1885, the Revised Version of the Old
Testament was laid before the same venerable body by the then Bishop of
Winchester (Bp. Harold Browne), and, similarly to the Revised Version of
the New Testament, was published simultaneously in this country and
America.  It was followed, after a somewhat long interval, by the Revised
Version of the Apocrypha, which was laid before Convocation by the writer
of these pages on February 12, 1896.

The revision of the Authorised Version has thus been in the hands of the
English-speaking reader sixteen years, in the case of the Canonical
Scriptures, and five years in the case of the Apocrypha--periods of time
that can hardly be considered insufficient for deciding generally,
whether, and to what extent, the Revised Version should be used in the
public services of the Church.

I have thus thought it well, especially after the unanimous resolution of
the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury, three years ago {6},
and the very recent resolution of the House of Laymen, to place before
you the question of the use of the Revised Version in the public services
of the Church, as the ultimate subject of this charge.  I repeat, as the
ultimate subject, for no sound opinion on the public use of this version
can possibly be formed unless some general knowledge be acquired, not
only of the circumstances which paved the way for the revision of the
time-honoured version of 1611, but also of the manner in which the
revision was finally carried out.  We cannot properly deal with a
question so momentous as that of introducing a revised version of God's
Holy Word into the services of the Church, without knowing, at least in
outline, the whole history of the version which we are proposing to
introduce.  This history then I must now place before you from its very
commencement, so far as memory and a nearly life-long connexion with the
subject enable me to speak.

The true, though remote fountain-head of revision, and, more
particularly, of the revision of the New Testament, must be regarded as
the grammar written by a young academic teacher, George Benedict Winer,
as far back as 1822, bearing the title of a Grammar of the Language of
the New Testament.  It was a vigorous protest against the arbitrary, and
indeed monstrous licence of interpretation which prevailed in
commentaries on Holy Scripture of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries.  It met with at first the fate of all assaults on prevailing
unscientific procedures, but its value and its truth were soon
recognized.  The volume passed through several successively