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.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture
• 2: Of the revision of the New Testament
• 3: Afterwards Bishop of Salisbury
• 4: Our object was to revise a version
• 5: To confer with the Convocation of York
• 6: These are the fundamental rules of Convocation
• 7: The Archdeacon of Bedford Rose
• 8: Pusey and Canon Cook declined the invitation
• 9: Especially in reference to the New Testament
• 10: In the session of Convocation in July
• 11: Four Independents or Congregationalists
• 12: With the American Revisers it was otherwise
• 13: Especially in reference to Ecclesiasticus
• 14: The Massora magna contained the above
• 15: Correction as displacement of the Massoretic text
• 16: A very anxious part of our revision
• 17: Whether that of Tischendorf or Tregelles
• 18: To the same measure of aversion
• 19: We had two things to do to revise the Authorised Version
• 20: But many were reopened at the second revision
• 21: Were constantly in accordance with the texts of Lachmann
• 22: Hort speaks of this Syrian revision as a vera causa
• 23: Westcott and Hort recognize four groups
• 24: We begin then with the Revised Version of the Old Testament
• 25: To the reverential uniformity of our Authorised Version
• 26: And Prophetical Books of the Old Testament
• 27: In the somewhat difficult passage of Exodus xvii
• 28: To correct the Authorised Version
• 29: To show the faithful thoroughness of the Revision
• 30: Was the central aim of the Revisers 98b
• 31: Either at the second revision or afterwards
• 32: The Greek Version of the Old Testament
• 33: But it went no further than grammatical details
• 34: Deissmann for his illustrations
• 35: Of Greek text and Greek text
• 36: The Revised Version of the Old Testament
• 37: However good the Version may be
• 38: And of the manifestation of it
• 39: And the Revised Version on the right
• 40: That the Revised Version would be desired and welcomed
• 41: And especially of the language of the Greek Testament
• 42: And of the Apocrypha separately
• 43: With other Reports of Convocation
• 44: The Historical Account and the Documentary History