LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A NEW TABLE OF LESSONS
Sus,—We are told that the authorities of the Church of England are working on a new Table of Lessons to be read in its services. May I take the opportunity of urging that in the new Lectionary an effort should be made to combine the merits of the Revised and Authorised Versions? Broadly speaking, the Revised Version is a more accurate rendering of the original, while the Authorised Version, incomparably beautiful and impressive as it is, contains mistakes which have been properly corrected by the revisers. Unfortunately, their zeal for scholastic accuracy has led the latter to make many alterations, particularly in the New Testament, which without being of substantial importance have seriously impaired the well-known cadences of the earlier Version. This is regrettable on two grounds. It has injured a great work of genius and it has thereby discouraged the use in church of a Version which in certain cases has made valuable improvements.
.Could not a careful review of the two texts by a small committee skilled in the English language remedy the evil? Where the reading proposed by the revisers has made a change which the Review Committee regard as substantial it should be accepted. For instance, it is right to correct the description of the Cretans as " slow bellies " by the words " idle gluttons." Where no substantial change has been made, as by the substitution of the words " brought him on his way " for the words " accompanied him" (Acts 20, V. 38), then the Authorised Version should be retained. I am not suggesting that the Review Committee should embark on a reconsideration of points of doctrine or scholarship. They should only restore the wording of the Authorised Version in the very large number of cases in which the revised reading would not convey to a listener in church any appreciable change of meaning, and thereby make available to churchgoers the learning of the revisers without materially lessening to them the beauty of the Authorised Version.—
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