BOOKS.

AN EXPERIMENT IN CONSERVATIVE REVISION. THE Authorized Version of the Bible is the common heritage of all who, under whatever sun, are still speakers of our English tongue. Not only its thoughts, but its words, its turns of expression, and even its cadences, have become part and parcel of ourselves, and wherever, in these islands, in our colonies, or among oar kinsfolk in America, men have used either the spoken or the written word worthily and for high aims, this great version—the unsurpassed masterpiece of English style—has ever been an ennobling and inspiring influence. As literature, indeed, no one would have it other than it is ; to touch it seems a sacrilege, and even its errors please. But as a book to which millions of men look as their sole guide to divine truth, no beauty of style can weigh against any important error, either in text or translation. Hence, as our knowledge of manuscripts, and also of Greek and Hebrew, became continually greater, the demand for a Revised Version became at last overpowering. " Acquiescence " in a version as "authentic," because it bears some ecclesiastical imprimatur, which the Preface to the Vulgate requires, is inconsistent with the very spirit of Protestantism, which subordinates authority to truth and rejects a false reading or a mistranslation in despite of Councils or anathemas. Revision, in fact, was imperative; and the task set before the Revisers in 1870 was one which could not be shirked, nor can the gratitude we owe them for their great work be either trivial or temporary. But their task was a very heavy one, and one, too, in which complete success could not justly be looked for in a first attempt. The Revised Version ought, in fact, we think, never to have been regarded as other than an experiment, es a trial version which its authors submitted to the test of time and experience, and to that common judgment of men at large which in the end rarely pronounces a wrong verdict. And if submitted to this-test and judgment —as it may now rightly be after a lapse of thirty years—the Revised Version cannot possibly be said to have won that full • The Epistle to the Hebrews: an Experiment in Conservative Revision. By

• Two Clerks. Cambridge University Press. [2s. 6d. netd

general approval without which it must be held to have failed, at least partially, in its purpose. To students, indeed, it is, and always will be, of high value; but it has never won its way to the hearts and affections of the many. " The common people" do not " bear it gladly," and that not merely because use and wont are powerful, so that—to take a noteworthy example—few could bring themselves to begin the Lord's Prayer with the single word " Father," although many of us believe that it was so spoken by Christ Himself, but because there is a general feeling that the old familiar words of the Bible, hallowed as they were by a thousand associations, had too often been tampered with and transformed for reasons which were neither adequate nor convincing.

The Revisers, in fact, as was only natural, seem to have magnified their office over-much. They did not, as would have been wise, consider only what must necessarily be changed, but also what ought possibly to be changed, and they too often irritate by corrections which, except to the scholastic or theo- logical eye, appear only meticulous or pedantic. For though extreme exactitude is desirable, so that the divine who, when asked if he was " saved," enquired whether the speaker " meant ecaCoaEeos or awa_fls or rreawcra‘vor " was really putting a very pertinent question, still, such delicate issues present themselves, we think, but rarely ; and, on the other hand, an extreme and minute accuracy is apt, as every scholar knows, to destroy all the force and beauty of a rendering, while it must also often fail to achieve even its own immediate aim. For language is always an elusive thing, and the Greek participles, moods, and tenses, the Greek article, and the Greek prepositions are, perhaps, -eminently elusive. They are so in classical Greek, as scores of learned volumes sufficiently attest, and in that "common dialect" (h eotei) which was used in the East in the first century A.D. they become far more so, especially when it is employed, as in the New Testament, by non-Greek writers. Assuredly a man of Hebrew birth, whose ordinary speech is .Aramaic, cannot be expected to use a shifting, unstable, inter- national Greek dialect with scientific precision. The attempt to secure such precision in translating writers of this sort is almost foredoomed to failure, and may therefore justly be subordinated to that higher law which bids us not needlessly disturb whatever is revered and almost sacred. In fact, what is needed is, in the language of a very weighty petition recently presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the Authorized Version should be corrected " in those places only where it is erroneous, misleading, or obscure." Such corrections there must be ; all others are " works of supererogation," and therefore to be condemned.

But it is one thing to petition, another to perform ; and the Archbishop, with native sagacity, asked his memorialists for " a specimen," suggesting the Epistle to the Hebrews as a fit subject for experiment, and accordingly "Two Clerks" have now offered " a Conservative Revision " of it in a tentative manner to evoke criticism. And, whatever the final verdict may be, the version they thus offer certainly deserves most careful study, for in all important matters it is, we think, not less trustworthy than the Revised Version; and it is also, as it claims to be, far more "conservative," as one or two examples will clearly indicate.

REVISED VERSION.

And according to the law, I may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.

A man that bath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them. By faith . .

Here, except that they alter "for by it" into "it was by it," the " Two Clerks " touch nothing, and nothing needs touching. For, apart from the words "is the substance of" (0r4ovaats), which need a marginal note, "or is the giving substance to," all is plain. There is no need for any alteration ; but the Revisers love to alter. "In the presence of God" (ix. 24) becomes with them "before the face of God" ; "every year with blood of others" (ix. 25) turns to "year by year with blood not his own "; " as the manner of some is " (x. 25) to " as the custom of some is "; and "a certain fearful looking

for of judgment " 27) to " a certain fearful expectation of

TWO CLERKS.

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood ; and without shed- ding of blood is no remission. ix. 22 Ile that depised Moses law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses. x. 23.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not even. It was by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith . . .

xi. 1.

judgment "—as if "looking for" were not the exact English of "expectation." Or we have such puerilities as " since then " for " forasmuch then," " indeed " for " verily," " he that built" (iii. 3) for " he who hath Duilded," "afterward to be spoken " (iii. 5) for " to be spoken after," " with boldness " for "boldly," and a hundred other like changes, too wearisome to record, which the " Two Clerks " have simply swept away into their proper oblivion, and have thus shown that there is one thing at least which ought to be done forthwith. Some half-dozen competent men should be given blue pencils and set down to delete from the Revised Version every alteration of which the justice or importance cannot be simply and clearly established. Half of them would go at the first reading.; a considerable number at the second; and there would remain, we think, perhaps a third of the whole number which would deserve careful attention ; while, by getting rid of irrelevancies, such changes as were finally made would stand out unencumbered in a clearer light, and so gain in real value.

Comment, however, without illustration is useless, and there- fore, even at the risk of tediousness, we give here the first four verses of the Hebrews as they appear in the Revised Version, marking changes in italics :—

" God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he (hath, A.V.) appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds ; who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his sub- stance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when 1 e had (by himself, A.V.) made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high ; having become by so much better than the angels, as he hath inheritecla more excellent name than they."

Now of these numerous changes two only have, we think, any real importance : first, the rendering of nohtaiepia gal weAveinSwoir (mullifariam mult jape media, Vulgate), which marks that the old revelation was given in different fragments and different ways, whereas the new has a distinctive unity of its own, so that the " Two Clerks" seem hardly justified in retaining "at sundry times," which is rather meaningless ; and secondly, the correction of " person " into " substance," which is compulsory. What, for instance, is the difference between "in his Son " and " by his Son" (or the " by a SON " which the "Two Clerks " give), or between " by whom" and " through whom " ? How is " effulgence " (areolucrya) better than "brightness," except as indicating some acquaintance with Milton, or " very image " (xapairrhp) than " express image," when the Greek word describes something which has the impress, and so becomes

the " express " copy of something else? Or what is the real difference between "being made" in its ordinary use and " having become," or between "bath by inheritance obtained" and "bath inherited " ? Assuredly such questions admit of no convincing answer. The reader is merely irritated without cause, repudiates revision altogether, and goes back to the old version, preferring to "swallow" a few errors rather than to be ceaselessly " straining at gnats." The Revisers have, in fact, ruined a good cause by a minute and almost Pharisaic regard for trifles, and this book is a demonstration of the fact. We do not agree with all of it. For example, in xii. 5, " the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children " is wrong, and " which reasoneth with you as with sons" (R.V.) is right, for the whole point of the argument turns on the word " sons " which has a wholly different connotation from " children." But on the whole it is excellent; and although the work of the " Two Clerks" is by its very nature chiefly of a negative character, it has yet the positive merit of proving beyond dispute that a "conservative revision" of the Authorized Version is as feasible as it is. necessary.

Here and there too they make an admirable correction of their own, as when they alter " to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself " (ix. 26) into "to do away sin," which exactly repro-

duces the very forcible Greek phrase (eis ai). vow Ityavrias) with the least possible disturbance of the text, while in their marginal notes they seem to provide just what is needed and

no more.