Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture   By: C. J. (Charles John) Ellicott (1819-1905)

Transcribed from the 1901 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture.

BY C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D.,

BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER, AND HON. FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.

LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.; 43 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. BRIGHTON: 129 NORTH STREET. NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1901.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The following Addresses form the Charge to the Archdeaconry of Cirencester at the Visitation held at the close of October in the present year. The object of the Charge, as the opening words and the tenor of the whole will abundantly indicate, is seriously to suggest the question, whether the time has not now arrived for the more general use of the Revised Version at the lectern in the public service of the Church.

C. J. GLOUCESTER.

October , 1901.

CONTENTS. PAGE ADDRESS I. EARLY HISTORY OF REVISION 5 ,, II. LATER HISTORY OF REVISION 17 ,, III. HEBREW AND GREEK TEXT 48 ,, IV. NATURE OF THE RENDERINGS 81 ,, V. PUBLIC USE OF THE VERSION 117

ADDRESS I. EARLY HISTORY OF REVISION.

As there now seem to be sufficient grounds for thinking that ere long the Revised Version of Holy Scripture will obtain a wider circulation and more general use than has hitherto been accorded to it, it seems desirable that the whole subject of the Revised Version, and its use in the public services of the Church, should at last be brought formally before the clergy and laity, not only of this province, but of the whole English Church.

Twenty years have passed away since the appearance of the Revised Version of the New Testament, and the presentation of it by the writer of these pages to the Convocation of Canterbury on May 17, 1881. Just four more years afterwards, viz. on April 30, 1885, the Revised Version of the Old Testament was laid before the same venerable body by the then Bishop of Winchester (Bp. Harold Browne), and, similarly to the Revised Version of the New Testament, was published simultaneously in this country and America. It was followed, after a somewhat long interval, by the Revised Version of the Apocrypha, which was laid before Convocation by the writer of these pages on February 12, 1896.

The revision of the Authorised Version has thus been in the hands of the English speaking reader sixteen years, in the case of the Canonical Scriptures, and five years in the case of the Apocrypha periods of time that can hardly be considered insufficient for deciding generally, whether, and to what extent, the Revised Version should be used in the public services of the Church.