POSITIVELY — ITS ADVANTAGES AS COMPARED WITH THE AUTHORIZED VERSION

1. It adds Graphic Touches to Many Narratives.

A positive gain from the use of the Revised Version lies in the graphic touches in which it abounds, enabling us to picture to ourselves Gospel scenes in a way which was before impossible.

Sometimes this results from a more vivid rendering of the original, as in Mark i. 27, where, after the healing of the man with the unclean spirit, the multitude are represented as questioning amongst themselves, saying, "What is this? a new teaching! with authority He commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him"; or in ch. ix. 22 f. when, to the prayer of the father of the demoniac boy, "If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us," Jesus replies, catching up his words, and retorting his condition on himself, "If thou canst!" — this is no question of My being able, but of thy being able — "All things are possible to him that believeth"; or, in the Parable of the Virgins, where the suddenness of the bridegroom's arrival is brought clearly out, "But at midnight there is a cry, Behold the bridegroom! Come ye forth to meet him" (Matt. xxv. 6).

Or, to turn to a different set of examples, we have seen already, in the case of the Parable of the Sower, the gain in graphicness from the proper recognition of the definite article, and numerous similar instances can be cited. Thus it was from "the pinnacle of the temple," some wellknown pinnacle, that the devil wished Jesus to cast Himself down (Matt. iv. 5; Luke iv. 9); "into the mountain," the high ground overlooking the Lake of Galilee, that Jesus went up when He spoke the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 1); down "the steep," the equally characteristic steep precipices at a little distance from the Lake, that the herd of swine rushed (Matt. viii. 32); "in the open street" rather than the indefinite "in a place where two ways met" that the disciples were directed to find the colt (Mark xi. 4); "the branches of the palm trees," that lined the side of the road, that the multitudes carried in welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem (John xii. 13); and "the seats of them that sold the doves," which were required by the Law for the purposes of religious offering, that Jesus overthrew (Matt. xxi. 12; Mark xi. 15). In St. Mark's narrative of this last incident there is a further correction of the same kind, "all the nations" for "all nations," along with one of those slight changes which at first sight seem of no special significance, but have an important bearing on the sense. Our Lord's words, as given in the Authorized Version, are, "Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves." But in the Revised Version the words run, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations," and thereby not only is the passage brought into exact agreement with the prophecy in Isaiah from which it is taken (Isa. lvi. 7), but its full force is given to our Lord's condemnation of the Jews. To them perhaps it had seemed a matter of small moment that the outer court, the court of the Gentiles, should be profaned, so long as the inner court, belonging especially to themselves, was kept holy; whereas, as Jesus now reminded them, it had been announced by one of their own prophets that His house was to be sacred alike to the Gentile as to the Jew — "a house of prayer for all the nations."

On the other hand, there are not a few passages in which the older translators have wrongly inserted a definite article when there is none in the original. In Luke ii. 12 the significance of the angelic sign to the shepherds lay in the fact that they would find not "the babe," but "a babe," a babe to all outward appearance like any human babe, "wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger." In John iv. 27 the disciples marvelled not because their Master was speaking "with the woman," as if they already knew all about this particular woman's past history, but "with a woman," any woman, contrary to the Rabbinical precept that prohibited all conversation with one of the other sex in public. In Acts xvii. 23 the point of the inscription on the altar at Athens lay in the fact that it was addressed, "To an Unknown God." And in 1 Tim. vi. 10 the love of money is not described as "the root of all evil," as if there were no other, but as "a root," one out of many, "of all kinds of evil."

The proper translation of the tenses also lends additional force to many passages. Thus who does not feel the lifelike reality of the present in such verses as Matt. iii. 1, "And in those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea" (especially when taken with the parallel in ver. 13, "Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan"), and still more noticeably perhaps in St. Mark's Gospel, where the Saviour is specially depicted in His Divine energy and power, passing from place to place on errands of mercy — "And they go into Capernaum" (i. 21), "And they found Him, and say unto Him, All are seeking Thee" (i. 37), "And straightway Jesus . . . saith unto them" (ii. 8), "And He cometh into a house" (iii. 19), "And there come His mother and His brethren . . . And they say unto Him . . . And He answereth them, and saith . . . And looking round on them . . . He saith . .  (iii. 31 ff.), and so in numerous other passages throughout the Gospel.

Or, passing from the present to the imperfect tense, instead of the general statement that "the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast," we learn from the resolved form of imperfect employed that they actually "were fasting"1 — were observing one of the weekly fasts which the stricter schools of Judaism enforced — at the very time when the disciples of Jesus had been engaged in feasting (Mark ii. 1 8). And all must recognize the new vividness imparted by a close observance of the tense to such passages from the Fourth Gospel as, "And the sea was rising by reason of a great wind that blew" (vi. 18), "Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch" (x. 23), "The disciples say unto Him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone Thee" (xi. 8). In Matt. iii. 14, again, a too great definiteness is given to the attitude of John towards Jesus, when He came to be baptized, by the rendering, "But John forbade Him." We have rather here an example of the inchoate force of the imperfect, which the Revisers have preserved by translating, "But John would have hindered Him." And similarly in Luke i. 59, with reference to the bestowal of the Baptist's own name we read not, "They called him," but "They would have called him Zacharias, after the name of his father." Another significant touch in the same Gospel, which unfortunately has been put in the margin, lies in the statement that the woman who was a sinner "kissed much" Jesus' feet (vii. 38), or, still better, "kept on kissing" them.

We shall have to return to the new force given to many doctrinal passages by the proper translation of the Greek aorist (see p. 104 f.), but meanwhile it may be well to notice one or two perfects, where the abiding force of the action described is now brought out. A simple example is afforded by John iv. 37 f. : "For herein is the saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not laboured : others have laboured (A.V. laboured), and ye are entered into their labours," where, as Bishop Westcott has pointed out, "the labours of earlier toilers for God are regarded not merely in the past, but as bearing fruit in the present."2

Or to take another example, to which the same writer has drawn special attention, in view of its bearing on the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. In John xix. 35 the Authorized Version reads, "He that saw it bare record, and his record is true," where the use of the past tense has been claimed as showing that the writer was referring to an earlier witness now dead, and not to himself, or he would have used the perfect. But that is exactly what he did, "And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and his witness is true." And thus the corrected rendering actually turns the force of the argument in the opposite direction.3

2. It throws Light oh Eastern Manners and Customs.

Nothing helps more to bring home to a congregation or class that the Bible is a real book dealing with the lives of real men and women, as to take every opportunity of pointing out to them the indications it contains of the marked differences between the Eastern and our Western mode of life. No doubt these differences can hardly be grasped from the Bible narrative alone, without the aid of such wellknown books as Dr. William M. Thomson's The Land and the Book, or the Rev. G. M. Mackie's Bible Manners and Customs, but the more exact renderings of the Revised Version, and especially the literal translations from the Greek contained in the margins, at least suggest points for inquiry.

Thus the reference to thieves "who dig through" and steal (Matt. vi. 19) points to the mud walls of which many of the Jewish houses were built. The bottles which were liable to burst with new wine were "wineskins" or "skins used as bottles" (Matt. ix. 17) which had become cracked and shrivelled in the smoke. It was a "cruse" or a "flask" of ointment, not a "box," which the woman poured over Jesus' head in Simon's house (Matt. xxvi. 7); and certainly not a "writing-table," as we understand it, but a "writing tablet," the small tablet smeared with wax on which words were traced with an iron pen, for which Zacharias in his dumbness asked (Luke i. 63).

How expressive too of the Jewish mode of taking food is the general statement that Jesus and His disciples "reclined" not "sat at meat" (Matt. ix. 10, xiv. 19; Mark xiv. 18). They surrounded, that is, the low stool or platform which in the East did duty for a table, each resting on his elbow with his unsandalled feet outstretched on the couch : so that we can understand further how on a certain occasion a woman that was a sinner could come behind and wash and kiss Jesus' feet (Luke vii. 38) — no objection being taken to her entering, as in the hospitable East all houses were left open, and during a meal anyone who liked could enter and look on.

What has just been said will also explain the sudden change in St. John's attitude at the Last Supper, which he himself describes with vivid pictorial traits, wholly obliterated in the Authorized Version. "There was at the table reclining in Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoneth to him, and saith unto him, Tell us who it is of whom He speaketh. He leaning back, as he was, on Jesus' breast" — with a quick, upward movement, that is, raising himself from his reclining attitude, and throwing his head back on Jesus' breast — "saith unto Him, Lord, who is it?" (John xiii. 23-25; cf. xxi. 20).

The oral instruction again, by means of which alone at first the truths of the Gospel were conveyed, is emphasized in the margin of Luke i. 4, where the Evangelist reminds Theophilus of the things "which thou wast taught by word of mouth"; and the amended version of Luke iv. 20 recalls that it was a "roll" rather than a "book," a parchment stretched out between two rollers, on which the prophecy was written; and that it was to the "attendant," the Chazzan or Clerk of the Synagogue, not the "minister" in our sense, that Jesus gave this back, when He had done reading.

3. It establishes Connexions between Different Parts of Scripture.

This often arises from the observance of the rule, to which as far as possible the Revisers have adhered, of adopting a uniform rendering throughout for the same word or phrase. The opposite, as is well known, was rather the practice of the Translators of 1611. "Another thing," they say in their Preface, "we think good to admonish thee of (gentle Reader) that we have not tied ourselves to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done. . . . Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before . . . we were especially careful. . . . But, that we should express the same notion in the same particular word . . . we thought to savour more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the Atheist than bring profit to the godly Reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables?"

But ingenious though this pleading is, it is clear that, if the principal object of a translation is to put the modern reader as nearly as possible in the same position as the reader of the original, this can only be attained by the same word in the original getting as far as possible the same rendering in the translation.

The most important gains in this direction occur probably in the Epistles, but they are to be found also in the Gospels. Thus, if the Greek adverb for "straightway"4 forms one of the keywords of St. Mark's Gospel, occurring in it no fewer than forty times, it is obvious that this should not be obscured by its receiving five different renderings — "straightway," "immediately," "forthwith," "anon," and "as soon as"; while the equally characteristic "abide"5 of St. John's Gospel is rendered indiscriminately "abide," "remain," "dwell," "continue," "tarry," and "endure," two of these different renderings being sometimes actually used in the same verse.

Who too does not recognize the gain of bringing out the connexion in Luke iv. I between the statement Jesus, "full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan," and the statement "was led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days" — a connexion obscured in the Authorized Version by the use in the first case of the archaic word "Ghost":6 between our Lord's sad admission in John iii. n, "Ye receive not our witness," and the taking up by the Evangelist of the same word a few verses further on, "And no man receiveth His witness" (ver. 32) : between, to take another example of the same emphatic word, "He (i.e. the Spirit of truth) shall bear witness of Me," and the immediately following, "Ye also bear witness" (John xv. 26, 27) : between our Lord's injunction, "Work not for the meat which perisheth. . and the disciples' eager question, "What must we do, that we may work the works of God?" (John vi. 27, 28) : between the identity of the sin and its punishment, "He will miserably destroy those miserable men" (Matt. xxi. 41)7 : and, a happier example, between the teaching, "Every branch that beareth fruit He cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit," and the gracious assurance, showing that this work was accomplished in the Apostles, "Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you" (John xv. 2, 3).8

4. Other Examples.

These examples have been taken from within the New Testament itself, but there is another class of connexions which it is most important to observe, the connexions, namely, between the New Testament and the Old, between the later and the earlier Dispensation. We have our Lord's own distinct statement that He came not "to destroy," but "to fulfil" (Matt. v. 17); and it is in perfect harmony with this that a little later in the same discourse He places His own teaching in contrast not with what was said "by them of old time," but with what was said "to them of old time" (ver. 21). So far from annulling God's previous Revelation, He only carried it on to a higher stage by the substitution of the inward for the outward, the spirit for the letter.

Therefore it is that, in the accounts of the institution of the Last Supper, we welcome the change of "testament," a word now generally used in a definite and restricted sense, into the familiar Old Testament "covenant" (Matt. xxvi. 28 and parallels, 1 Cor. xi. 25), so bringing this last and highest proof of God's love into direct line with all His previous promises of grace; and, in the multitude's testimony regarding Jesus, the substitution of the definite article for the over-translated "that" — "This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world" (John vi. 14), so carrying back our thoughts to the well-known prophet of Deut. xviii. 15, for whose advent the Jews had been anxiously waiting.

Similarly, in the case of another of our Lord's titles, we know how ready the Evangelists, and especially the Evangelist Matthew, were to see in His ministry the fulfilment of the prophecy regarding "the servant of the Lord" in Isa. Hi. 13 ff. It is most unfortunate, therefore, that this connexion should be obscured to the ordinary English reader of the Book of Acts by the substitution of "son" or "child" for "servant" in ch. iii. 13, 26, iv. 27, 30.

Passing to Proper Names, the Revisers of the New Testament have not hesitated for the sake of greater clearness to depart from the Greek forms which, as a rule, were followed in the Authorized Version, and to recur to the Hebrew forms with which we have become familiar in the Old. "Let us just seek to realize to ourselves," says Archbishop Trench, "the difference in the amount of awakened attention among a country congregation, which Matt. xvii. 10 would arouse, if it were read thus, 'And His disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes that Elijah must first come?' as compared with what it now is likely to create. Elijah is a person to them; the same who once raised the widow's son, who on Mount Carmel challenged and overcame alone the army of the prophets of Baal, who went up in a fire-chariot to heaven. Elias is for them but a name."9 But this gain and many similar ones are now secured to us. "Abijah," "Hezekiah," "Isaiah," "Zechariah," "Elisha," "Judaea," meet us, where before we had the at best vague designations, "Abia," "Ezekias," "Esaias," "Zacharias," "Eliseus," "Jewry" (Matt, i. 7, 10, iii. 3, xxiii. 35, Luke iv. 27, xxiii. 5) : while "Sharon" now takes the place of "Saron" in Acts ix. 35, and "Kish" of "Cis" in Acts xiii. 21.

Any confusion caused by these last examples may seem of comparatively little moment, but it is different with the use in the Authorized Version of the name "Jesus" in Acts vii. 45 and Heb. iv. 8. By the ordinary reader that name is at once taken as referring to the Person of our Lord Himself, and only when his Revised Version shows him that it is the Old Testament "Joshua" who is intended, can he understand the two passages properly.

One other instance must be noticed in this connexion. By us "Christ" has come to be recognized as a Proper Name, and as such it is constantly used in the Authorized Version without the definite article. But as a matter of fact the word is always employed in the Gospels, with certain trifling exceptions,10 as a title or designation. It is "the Christ," the Messiah, who is thought of, who may, or may not, be identified with the historical Jesus, according to the faith of the speaker. Thus Herod inquires "where the Christ should be born" (Matt. ii. 4); John the Baptist, when he hears in his prison "the works of the Christ," sends and asks, "Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?" (Matt. xi. 2, 3); and our Lord Himself meets the perplexities of the two disciples on the Emmaus road with the question, "Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things?" (Luke xxiv. 26). The disciples, trusting to their own interpretation of the Scriptures, were turning away from a suffering and crucified Messiah; but now from these very Scriptures the Risen Redeemer showed them that it was just because of His sufferings that He was the Messiah, that "the Christ" behoved "to suffer . . . and to enter into His glory."

So true is it, that it is the end which is the true test of every revelation, as we are again reminded in the revised rendering of one of our Lord's most familiar words. For it is not so much an injunction, "Search the Scriptures," that He lays upon His disciples, as a warning against putting these same Scriptures in a wrong place. "Ye search the Scriptures," so the translation now runs, "because ye think that in them ye have eternal life" — you substitute, that is, the Book for the Person — forgetting that "these [Scriptures] are they which bear witness of Me; and ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life" (John v. 39, 40). It is a warning of which we cannot be reminded too often, for only as our study of Holy Writ is drawing us ever closer to Him Who is not only "the Way" but "the Truth," and not only "the Truth" but "the Life," can we hope to find life either for ourselves or for those whom we are called upon to teach.

1 ἦσαν . . . νλστεύοντες.

2 Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament, London, 1897, p. 52.

3 Some Lessons of the Revised Version of the New Testament, p. 52.

4 εὐθέως.

5 μένω.

6 It is one of the gains of the American edition of the Revised New Testament that the rendering "Holy Spirit" is uniformly adopted for "Holy Ghost." The whole list of readings and renderings preferred by the American Committee, as recorded at the close of our Revised Testament, should be carefully studied.

7 Cf. the amended renderings of 1 Cor. iii. 17, "If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy"; Col. iii. 25 (margin), "For he that doeth wrong shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done"; and 2 Pet. ii. 12, "But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroying surely be destroyed."

8 See also such passages as Rom. iv. 3-8; 1 Cor. xi. 28-34; Rev. iv. 2-4.

9 On the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 74.

10 e.g. Matt. i. 1; Mark i. 1; John i. 17.