English Versions of the Bible

of the Bible, and editions in conformity with it published by Messrs. Thomas Nelson & Sons and certified by this indorsement, are the only editions authorized by the American Committee of Revision.

George E. Day, Secretary of the Committee,

and of the Old Testament Company.
J. Henry Thayer, Secretary of the New
Testament Company.
Copyright, 1901,

By Thomas Nelson & Sons.

The New Covenant commonly called The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Translated out of the Greek Being the Version set forth A.D. 1611 Compared with the most ancient Authorities and Revised A.D. 1881 Newly Edited by the New Testament Members of the American Revision Committee A.D. 1900 New York Thomas Nelson & Sons 37 East 18th Street

Reasons for Publication.-The General Preface to the Bible (and the Preface to the New Testament in substantial agreement with it) states that while the English Revision Companies disbanded soon after the close of their work in 1885, the American Revision Committee, in view of the possibility of an eventual call for an American recension of the English Revision, resolved to continue their organization. Accordingly they have been engaged more or less diligently, ever since 1885, and especially since the year 1897, in making ready for such a publication."

Having stated in a previous paragraph that there had been no indication of an intention on the part of the Presses to amalgamate the readings of the Appendix, either wholly or in part, with the text of the English editions," they add that "the judgment of scholars, both in Great Britain and in the United States, has so far approved the American

preferences that it now * seems expedient to issue an edition of the Revised Version with those preferences embodied in the text."

The Preface continues:

"The Appendix was itself in need of revision; for it had been prepared under circumstances which rendered fulness and accuracy almost impossible. This work could of course not be taken in hand until the revision was concluded; and since it required a careful consideration of discussions and decisions extending over a period of many years, there was need of many months' time, if the Appendix was to be satisfactorily constructed, especially as it was thought desirable to reduce the number of recorded differences, and this required the drawing of a sharp line between the more and the less important. Manifestly such a task would be one of no little difficulty at the best. But when the time came for it to be done, the University Presses deemed that the impatient demand of the British public for the speedy publication of the Revision must be respected; and they insisted on a prompt transmission of the Appendix. Prepared under such pressure and in such haste, it was obviously inevitable that it should be marked by grave imperfections; and the correction of its errors and the supplementing of its defects has been a work of much time and labor.

"When the Appendix was originally prepared, an effort was made to pave the way for an eventual acceptance of the American preferences on the part of the English Presses, by reducing the number of the points of difference to the lowest limit, and thus leaving out much the larger part of the emendations which the Revisers had previously by a two-thirds vote pronounced to be in their opinion of decided importance. In now issuing an American edition, the American Revisers, being entirely untrammelled by any connection with the British Revisers and Presses, have felt themselves to be free to go beyond the task of incorporating the Appendix in the text, and are no longer restrained from introducing into the text a large number of those suppressed emendations."

Changes. The text of the English edition with the

* That is on the expiration of the fourteen years during which the American preferences, by agreement, should be published as an Appendix in every copy of the Revised Bible, while the American Committee pledged themselves, for the same period, not to sanction the publication of any other editions of the Revised Version than those issued by the University Presses of England. See Preface, p. iii.

American preferences embodied in it differs from that of the American Standard only to the extent of the subsequent recension of the Revised Version. In the examples last presented, for instance, the sole differences are Job xix. 25, where A. S. spells "Redeemer" with a capital letter, and Is. xxviii. 5, where it substitutes "will" for "shall," and "justice" for "judgment.”

and

The changes introduced are:

Uniformity.-1. The uniform rendering "Jehovah "” for “Lord,” God" printed in small capitals; the uniform substitution of "sheol" for "the grave," ," "the pit," and "hell"; the uniform use of "who" and "that" for "which" when relating to persons, of "its" for "his" or "her" when relating to impersonal objects not personified; the uniform substitution of "are" for "be" in indicative clauses, of “a” for “an" before “h” aspirated, and the omission of "for" before infinitives; the adequate distinction between "will" and "shall"; e.g. in Ps. cxxi. 3, 4, where "shall" is singularly inappropriate.

Recessions from the Appendix.—2. Upon more careful and mature consideration, requirements of the Appendix have been modified. Thus the general direction of substituting "put to shame for "ashamed" has been departed from by the occasional use of " confounded"; the recommendation that "justice' was to be put for "judgment" in twenty-five places has been extended to many more, and in numerous places changed into "ordinance" where the reference is not a judicial sentence, threatened or inflicted, but a law of action. In like manner the rendering spoil" in the Authorized Version represents many different Hebrew words, is replaced by "despoil," "plunder," ravage," &c., according to the connection. For the sake of consistency the distinction between "stranger," "foreigner," and "sojourner" is made uniform, as is the substitution of "false" and "falsehood" for "vain" and "vanity." A further departure from the requirement of the Appendix is the introduction of references to ancient versions in the margin, reduced in number to a little more than one-sixth of those given in the English Revision, and made definite by the names of the Versions which contain a specified reading.

Other Changes. In quite a number of places the American Standard has restored readings of the Authorized Version as more felicitous than those of the Revision of 1881-1885; e.g. Ex. xx. 4, 13; Lev. xix. 22;

Ps. xlviii. 1, civ. 26, cxiv. 4. It has increased the number of euphemisms; e.g. it substitutes "anguish" for "bowels," Jer. iv. 19, and "heart" for the same word, Lam. i. 20. "Heart" is frequently replaced by "mind," and "reins" in a psychological sense is uniformly displaced by "heart." Over-literal Hebraisms have been discarded; thus in place of "that they may be to do the service" (Num. viii. 11) and "mine eye spared them from destroying them" (Ezek. xx. 17), appear the renderings "that it may be theirs to do the service," and "mine eye spared them, and I destroyed them not." "By" is uniformly substituted for "by the hand of"; and in places where "land" is the equivalent of "country," the rendering "in the land," Deut. v. 16 and elsewhere, is substituted for "upon the land." These changes are due to regard for pure English idiom. Among the archaic and obscure terms displaced are "bolled" (Ex. ix. 31) by "in bloom," and "in good liking" (Job xxxix. 4) by "become strong." Under the same head may be specified the following substitutions: "heavier than they both" for "... than them both," Prov. xxvii. 3; "jealous of his wife" for ". Renderings different from those in previous English Versions.— Isa. xxx. 32, “shall be with the sound of tabrets and harps; and in battles with the brandishing of his arm will he fight with them"; Isa. xxxv. 8, “. . but it shall be for the redeemed. . . (Margin, Heb. them); Hos. xi. 2, "The more the prophets called them, the more they ." (cp. 2 Kings xvii. 13-15).

over his wife," Num. v. 30.

Penny" is replaced by "shilling" in thirteen places, on account of its greater appropriateness.

References and Headings.-This edition, like some of its predecessors, contains marginal references to parallel and illustrative passages, but unlike previous editions of the Revised Version, also headings indicating the contents of each page, concerning which the Preface states that " everything that might seem to savour of a questionable exegesis has been carefully avoided."

NEW TESTAMENT.-Comparison of this "text" with that of 1881, and especially with that of 1898, shows that in the New Testament changes beyond the requirements of the Appendix are very few, and deal mainly with matter specified before.* The longer examples given in the last

* See p. 508.

chapter, for instance, show no differences as read in the editions of 1898 and 1901.

Collation showing the Variations in the Texts of the Authorized Version (A. V.), the Revised Version (R. V.), and the American Standard (A. S).