P055 The Authorized Version.

P055 The Authorized Version.

Though the rules are well enough, there seems to have been in their application a want of system, which has led, in some instances, to confusion,(1) The punctuation of our version was at first very scanty, affording but little help to one who wished to read aloud. The edition of 1611 abounds in parentheses, which have since been supplanted by commas. The note of exclamation is rare, the interrogation point usually standing in its place. The marginal notes are intended to give a more literal rendering, or an alternative rendering, or to explain proper names, or to give various readings. In the original edition these numbered in the Old Testament 6,637, and in the New Testament 765; 473 have since been added.

While in some of these notes the reading suggested may be better than in the text, in many it is not so good, and in some there are serious errors.

Dr. Scrivener(2) affirms that the most of these errors in the Old Testament are to be traced to the influence of the Latin Old Testament of Tremellius and Junius, which the translators, no doubt, used; while those in the New Testament plainly show the influence of the Latin version of Beza. The translators did not make any historical or chronological notes. These have been added since their day. The marginal references to parallel passages at first were comparatively scanty. In the Old Testament there were 6,588, and in the New, 1517, making a total of 8,105. Later editions have added to these, until they are numbered by tens of thousands, and there is one edition which claims to have half a million! The chapter headings are said to have been prepared by one of the forty-seven translators and one other person. As originally made there were many errors in them, and many mistaken notions.

They have been materially changed by different editors since then, and in some of the best Bibles now printed are entirely left out.

------------ (FN1)Dr. Eadie (vol. ii, p. 280, et seq.) gives numerous illustrations.

(FN2) "Cambridge Paragraph Bible."—Int., pp. xxvi and xxxi.

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