It required fifty years of the Elizabethan age to introduce that revision
of the English Bible which has so long been the standard edition of
the Holy Scriptures in our tongue. It would be strange if the revision
of that standard Bible which has just been completed were to come into
immediate and general use. The New Testament revision met with a harsh
reception from the critics of conservative temper; and it certainly
has some defects, though the _sense_ of the original is more obvious,
to use the mildest term, in the new than in the older revision. The
revised Old Testament has consumed fourteen years of the labor of the
English and American committees, and the most obvious fact is that it is
a more conservative piece of work than the revised New Testament. The
committees probably profited by the buffetings of their New Testament
revision brethren; but they had a simpler task, since they had not to
settle the text of the original Hebrew, whereas the Greek text of the
New Testament is still a battle ground of criticism. After all, however,
the two revisions constitute one “revised Bible,” and must stand or
fall together. The general judgment may probably run to the effect that
the New Testament is revised too much and the Old too little. There
is a special defect, however, in the New Testament English—it is not
idiomatic, and it is not always intelligible. There is a rumor that it
will be re-revised into harmony with the conservatism which characterizes
the new Old Testament. It is not to be overlooked that there are various
demands made upon a revision. Those who most earnestly desire one have
in view a more plain and understandable text for popular use. Wycliffe’s
great thought, “a Bible understonden of the people,” is their desire.
But the literary demands upon the revisers exclude intelligibility by
the people as a governing rule. This group of demands defies the skill
of any revision committee. They ask for improvements; but they object
to any changes. The Bible as an Elizabethan classic is their admiration
and they seem not to be willing that the people should have any other
Bible. There would seem to be ample room for both revisions; let the
literary people have their English of 1611, while the people have English
of this century. We are not yet, however, sufficiently advanced in the
thinking which revision requires to qualify even the critics among us
to distinguish between a classic text for scholars and a plain text for
the millions. A modern English Bible will come by and by; we can afford
to wait, and meanwhile to study the fruits of the labors of a Revision
Committee loaded down with a great weight of conservative environments.
For it is not the classicist alone who stands guard over the old English
text; conservative theologians regard that old text as too sacred to be
modernized, and distrust modernizing as involving changes in the moral
and religious influence of the Bible upon mankind. The intelligibility of
the Bible is not, to such thinkers, a leading requisite; reverence for
its mysteries ranks all other considerations. We are probably outgrowing
this view of Holy Scripture; but it is an opinion strong enough yet to
keep utterly dead English locutions in the revised Old Testament of 1885.
This conservatism is much stronger in England than in this country; the
American Committee desired to substitute modern for obsolete words.
That any changes have been made under such respectable and imposing
auspices is a great gain to Christian knowledge. The thing is done; the
grand old text has been subjected to a revision. It is quite possible
that we are entering an age of biblical revision; and it should be
remembered that the Bible of 1611 closed an age of revision. It was
the last in a series of revisions, each of which contributed to the
perfection of the English text. We can not be content with an English
Bible which employs _which_ for _who_, _wist_ for _knew_, _earing_
for _plowing_ and _ouches_ for _settings_. The American Committee was
thoroughly right in desiring to use modern words in these and other
cases. If any revision is to stand, it must contain such modifications
of the old text. A satisfactory English text can not be attained so long
as the English Christians insist upon retaining archaic forms of such
insignificance as the foregoing; there must be an agreement to make an
English text on Wycliffe’s principle of popular intelligibleness, before
a revision can be of very high utility. The present revision breaks the
ice; we have begun; some time or other we shall go on to the logical
conclusion of the movement—a modern English Bible for all who use our
mighty speech. The assent of the conservative to a single change concedes
the principle of revision; his assent to many changes prepares the way
for all that are necessary to the modernizing of the Book of Books.