P062 A Short History of the English Bible.

P062 A Short History of the English Bible. The present version, though unquestionably the best English version ever made, has many defects which the advanced scholarship of the present day is abundantly able to remedy. Among these are, doubtful renderings of words; incorrect renderings; unnecessary distinctions made; real distinctions effaced; faults of grammar; faults of lexicography; treatment of proper names, official titles, etc.; archaisms; defects in English; errors of the press.(1)

What the revisers propose to do in their work is, to use a more correct Greek text than it was possible for the revisers of 1611 to obtain; to correct errors, typographical and grammatical; to correct mistranslations and inexact renderings; to introduce consistency and uniformity in translations of words and phrases; to remove obsolete words; to introduce uniformity in spelling proper names; to revise orthography, punctuation, use of capitals, italics, marginal references, chronology, and headings of chapters and of columns; to combine, with the present division into chapters and verses, an arrangement of the prose in paragraphs, and of the poetry in meter.

All lovers of the Bible will await with interest the publication of this revised version.

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XVI.

PECULIAR BIBLES.

It may interest our readers to learn something of English Bibles, or parts of Bibles, which have become more or less famous because of priority in publication, or by reason of certain peculiarities either in the translation or in typographical errors. A volume might be filled with an account of these; we give a few specimens.

1. Priority in Publication. The first manuscript English New Testament was that of Wycliffe, 1380, followed about two years later by the first manuscript Old Testament. The first printed New Testament was that of Tyndale, Cologne and Worms, 1525, 1526.

------------ (FN1)It is impossible, within the space allotted to this work, to give a list of these defects here.

They are treated at length by Eadie, vol. ii, pp. 336-480; by Lightfoot, Trench, Ellicott, and Schaff in their essays mentioned in the List of Authorities on page 7 of this book, and in "Anglo-American Bible Revision."

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