THE Canterbury Revision of the Authorized Version of the New Testament, which was begun in 1870 and finished in 1881, is an Anglo-American compromise. Had there been an Anglican Revision without American co-operation, the changes would have been fewer. Had there been an American Revision without Anglican co-operation, the changes would have been more numerous, and also more radical.

For nearly eleven years, the Anglican Company of twenty-five Revisers and the American Company of thirteen worked together, though more than three thousand miles apart. Most of the changes proposed by either Company were concurred in by the other Company. And yet, after all their mutual concessions, each side yielding more than it cared to yield, there remained a considerable number of rejected American suggestions, a list of which, partly in classes and partly in detail, is appended to the volume issued from the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge.

These suggestions, which relate both to readings and to renderings, are here in this volume incorporated into the text. The present Editor, who was not one of the Revisers, considered it no part of his allotted task to make any other important changes than the ones thus indicated. He has merely worked up the suggestions of the Appendix; with the exception of adding one to the list of discarded archaisms by substituting "while" for "whiles," which occurs but twice.

It is proper to say, that neither the American Company of Revisers, nor any member of the Company, is responsible for the put

ting forth of this American Revision. The idea of it originated with the Publishers, whose names are on the title-page, and who have spared neither pains nor cost to have the work accurately done.

No book was ever translated perfectly; every language having its own characteristic idioms, for which there are no exact equivalents in other languages. But, on the whole, no book has endured translation better than the Bible. And of all the Versions of it, first and last, in all ages and in all languages, our Authorized English Version of it is confessedly one of the best. Many good people desire, and will accept, no other, preferring still to keep the old ancestral Book, reading the very words, in the very rhythm, with which they have been familiar from childhood.

Translators of the Bible are not inspired. The very Word of God, from which alone there is no appeal, is in Hebrew and Greek. Some portions of it are liturgical, and may be rendered with an eye to liturgical use. But all portions of it are incomparably sacred and precious; and our supreme duty in relation to it is to ascertain, if possible, and then to express, if possible, exactly its meaning, in every chapter and paragraph, in every sentence, in every idiom, and in every word. Rhythm may be studied, and old associations may be dealt with gently; but rhythm is only æsthetic, associations are accidental and changeable, and the most faithful renderings will finally be pronounced the best.

The feasibility of improving, and of greatly improving, the Authorized Version, is no longer an open question. Eleven years ago the task itself was undertaken with the expressed approbation, almost as it were by the commandment and authority, of the great bulk of English-speaking Christian people on both sides of the Atlantic, and all round the globe. During all these years some of the best Hebrew and Greek scholars in Great Britain and in the United States have bestowed their best endeavors upon this task. A portion of their work is now submitted to the intelligence and taste of the millions they have tried to serve. The Revised New Testament is before us, in a twofold form, Anglican and American. And our judgment is invoked concerning it.

This judgment must not be hasty. Nor will it, in the end, be passionate or prejudiced. Probably this Revision will not be accepted just as it is, in either form. But, in all the essentials of close and faithful rendering, it will be recognized as an immense improvement upon the King James Revision of nearly three hundred years

ago, which must now begin to be laid aside. And as to the points of difference between the two Companies of Revisers, the renderings preferred by the American Revisers will, in most cases, be considered more exact and self-consistent than those preferred by their Anglican brethren.

Not much now remains to be done, compared with what has already been accomplished. Some better readings may be adopted, some awkwardly literal renderings may be improved, paragraphs may be shortened, remaining archaisms expelled, and rules, sometimes observed, may be observed throughout. With these emendations, so easy to make, we who speak the noblest of living languages may soon have the Book of books in a form very nearly perfect.

ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK.

UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY:

NEW YORK, June 28, 1881.

In this second impression of the American Revised New Testament errors discovered in the first impression have been corrected. Special pains have been taken to make the Appendix both accurate and complete.

August 10, 1881.

R. D. H.

PREFACE

TO THE REVISED NEW TESTAMENT.

THE English Version of the New Testament here presented to the reader is a Revision of the Translation published in the year of Our Lord. 1611, and commonly known by the name of the Authorised Version.

That Translation was the work of many hands and of several generations. The foundation was laid by William Tyndale. His translation of the New Testament was the true primary Version. The Versions that followed were either substantially reproductions of Tyndale's translation in its final shape, or revisions of Versions that had been themselves almost entirely based on it. Three successive stages may be recognised in this continuous work of authoritative revision: first, the publication of the Great Bible of 1539-41 in the reign of Henry VIII.; next, the publication of the Bishops' Bible of 1568 and 1572 in the reign of Elizabeth; and lastly, the publication of the King's Bible of 1611 in the reign of James I. Besides these, the Genevan Version of 1560, itself founded on Tyndale's translation, must here be named; which, though not put forth by authority, was widely circulated in this country, and largely used by King James' Translators. Thus the form in which the English New Testament has now been read for 270 years was the result of various revisions made between 1525 and 1611; and the present Revision is an attempt, after a long interval, to follow the example set by a succession of honoured predecessors.

I. Of the many points of interest connected with the Translation of 1611, two require special notice; first, the Greek Text which it