25 DECEMBER 1926, Page 22

Studies in the Text of the New Tentament. By A.

T. Robertson, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton. 8s. 6d.)

Professor Robertson has added to a long list of works on the New Testament an admirable synopsis of the gradual evolution, correction, and standarclizanp, of_its Greek text.

Chapters are given, too, on the story of early English Bibles, on the Revised New Testament, on recent independent transla- tions, and on some special readings and misreadings of texts. Such a book might well be a cumbrous collection of facts and dates ; in Dr. Robertson's hands it becomes a fascinating record of what is not only useful, but in many cases indispenr- able knowledge to the clergyman and the Biblical student. That the verse divisions should have been made by Robert Stephens (Estieime) during a horse-back journey in 1551 from Paris to Lyons, and that it is certain that the horse gave some bumps• in the wrong place " is a curiosity of history. Dr. Robertson overstates -the number of the Marian martyrs, and omits the telling little fact for the early popularity of the Genevan Version—namely, that it was the first Bible of portable size—a fact with tremendous results in the spread of Calvinism ; but these are indeed small blemishes in an excellent and serviceable book.