SUCCESSIVE IMPROVEMENTS BY REVISION.

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This tabular view may assist our readers in enabling them to form some opinion of the change that was effected in our English Bible in the reign of James I., and will probably induce most of them to agree with us, that it exhibits more of the hand of the reviser than of the translator. Brief as these examples are, they may suffice to establish our conclusion, that whatever credit is due to those who were engaged upon the Bible of that period, and which is now our authorized version, belongs to them, not as the authors of this translation, but as the judicious editors and correctors of a work which was already made to their hands; but upon which they bestowed in some instances the lime labor of the elaborate critic; in others the touches of the literary sculptor, chiselling out the work into finer or more exact lineaments than his predecesor had given it; or, lastly, on some rare occasions, softening down an old feature, or bringing out a new one more strictly in accordance with the beau-ideal of the original.

It will thus be evident, how in certain cases the last version has not made any advances upon the first, though in the generality of cases there is, as might be expected, the widest interval of correspondence between Coverdale's Bible, and that which we now use. It would have required, indeed, a much more extended view of these several versions, to have exhibited this and other particulars in such a way as might still more unequivocally demonstrate that all the several Bibles which have existed from the time of the Reformation to the present day, and possessed any authority as the standard translations of Scripture, must have been moulded, so to speak, on the same block. For the further proof of it we must refer to works in which these versions are printed side by side; and as we shall have occasion in the course of this article to furnish a variety of other evidences illustrative of this matter, and bearing on it, we need not here enlarge, except to remark, that whatever be the differences between the several versions of our Bible, a precedent is afforded of the highest value in relation to the question of successive translations, or successive revisions, whichever we may call it. Neither of these several revisions of the Bible were judged superfluous.

*Bagster's "Hexapla" may be referred to as a useful book for this, as regards the New Testament. But by some strange oversight, the version which in some respects was more important than the rest, viz. the Bishops' Bible, is omitted in that work. Dr. Cotton's work entitled "Editions of the Bible and Parts thereof," contains various comparative specimens of the different versions in English, from the earliest period. See p. 286, et seq. Second edition. But our illustrations are not borrowed from this volume.

One did not vitiate, nor even always supersede, the other. Neither of them after the first was an attempt to do much more than to improve the previous version by a careful revision. Each of them was in some respects improved in turn by such revision; and the last of the Bibles submitted to this process, has only become what it now is, by having been exposed, in its successive transitions from one ordeal to another, to the scrutiny, first, of some of the most pious, learned and gifted minds of the age, connected immediately with our early Reformation; next, of that which followed when this Reformation was more matured; and, lastly, of another at a period of comparative tranquillity, when all the fruits of the Reformation had developed themselves in a host of sound scholars, acute Bible critics, and able Protestant divines, with a king at their head almost as accomplished as any of them in theological learning, and justly entitled in this respect to the epithet bestowed on him, of being the Solomon of his day.

That the work thus undertaken, and thus executed, should not, however, have been so complete and perfect in every sense as to supersede all future attempts of the same kind, was only to be expected from the nature of the task, and the necessary imperfection of all human efforts, labouring upon one so laborious and difficult. Besides the changes which, like the human body, language undergoes from one distant period to another, rendering a multitude of words and phrases far more obsolete, in our day, than were the equivalent ones in the reigns of James I., it is obvious that at the time of this last revision there was a prevailing school of theology, which could not but leave some traces of its strong features impressed upon various passages of our Bible. Biblical science was then also deficient of many of the helps which it has subsequently obtained from the labours of eminent scholars in the collation of original MSS. Further, it must not be overlooked, that the great national work (we may almost call it) undertaken by Bishop Walton, of publishing the Polyglott Bible, with the Lexicon of Castell, had not as yet facilitated the ordinary path of scriptural philology, by throwing the combined light of the most ancient versions upon the dark, arduous, and rocky steeps by which only the arcana of the sacred writers, in their original tongues, can be reached. Oriental learning remained, even to a later season, in a somewhat incipient stage of its progress; and it was not until such men as Pococke, Schultens, Bochart, and others, appeared, that the stores of the Arabic, Syriac,

IMPERFECTIONS RETAINED WITHOUT REASON.

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and other kindred dialects were opened, to supply the key which can alone unlock some of the most mysterious chambers of imagery belonging to the Old Testament. For all these reasons, it is no disparagement to the excellence of our present Bible to say, that it labours under certain imperfections in the translation, from which it could not have been exempted except by miracle; and that the history of its progress, up to the time when it was last remodelled, countenances rather than discourages any proper attempts that may be made to advance it still another stage in the way of improveIts past changes are fully coincident with the theory of its future and possible development into a higher grade of beauty and perfection. Admitting here, for the sake of argument, that there are still remaining in it, a considerable number of passages that require some degree of alteration or emendation, to adapt them to the age in which we live, or to vindicate more fully any truths of God's word, or to make that word more perfectly in accordance with the spirit or letter of the original revelation, how can we be justified, on good grounds, in withholding our assent to the present movement? For it is one only in accordance with the example of ages and persons we are accustomed to venerate. It is, moreover, we may say, demanded by the sacred interests of divine truth itself, which are not to be satisfied by any preciation of her standard vehicle of all that is good and valuable. The difficulties of obviating this evil are to be overcome at all hazards; for truth is a matchless treasure, which we are not to sell at any price, and to do all to buy. The more beautiful the material, the more perfect we wish and ought to wish that it may appear. The imperfections we suffer to rest upon it, through our own neglect, are as dust upon the diamond, not indeed sufficient to destroy its value, or to alter in any degree its genuine and intrinsic character, like flaws within the gem, yet something that cannot but soil, if it does not pollute; alike disagreeable to the eye and to the mind as obstructive of the brilliancy and purity we would fain see in every part of so valuable a substance;-something in short that continually reminds us of our own indolence and indifference to what should be all glorious without as well as within; and this, too, in proportion to the ease with which such casual adjuncts on the surface might be made at least to disappear for the present, if not finally and for ever removed.

de

It is, therefore, that we hail with sincere pleasure all efforts now making for this great object. And among these we must undoubtedly rank these works placed at the head

of this article. Dr. Davidson's revision of the Hebrew text stands foremost as a most praiseworthy attempt to give us, at one view, whatever may be gained by collation of the ancient MSS. to assist in the removal of some of the difficulties necessarily found in all translations from an uncertainty as to the genuine reading of the original. Although, indeed, it must be confessed that a vast number of these various readings are of no essential importance, being merely doubtful matters of Hebrew grammar, differences in the vowel points, or variations as to the affix or prefix particles, in no great degree affecting our present English text; and although it may be that in some instances Dr. Davidson has rejected readings which other scholars equally distinguished have received as genuine, we are still highly indebted to him for the work which he has given us-one of labour surpassingly great-as all will acknowledge who have any experience in subjects of this kind. The principal merit of such a conspectus must be, that it greatly facilitates the task of those whose duty it may be to examine upon what foundation we may rest our confidence in the accuracy of the Hebrew reading, by which our present English text was corrected or constructed. Whenever this work shall be repeated for the purpose of revising our standard version, by authority, unquestionably the volume before us will have its value greatly increased, and must then find its appropriate place, as being among the most valuable contributions for that end which the present age has furnished.

The volume of Dr. Kalisch may also be regarded as an important one in the annals of Biblical literature. It would be much more so, if the work to which it belongs were completed. It contains a body of learned and yet readable notes, which are its most remarkable feature. The size of the whole work, if ever published, must however preclude it from popular use, for the volume embraces only the Book of Exodus, which, with the notes, fills upwards of 600 pages. Many years must, therefore, evidently elapse before a translation and commentary on this scale can be published, Embracing also, as it does, a portion of our Bible, requiring perhaps no great number of textual emendations, it cannot be classed so highly, in reference to the subject of this article, as some other of the works we shall have to notice. The eulogies pronounced upon this volume by the periodical press appear to us somewhat extravagant. We have not to object to much that we have seen in this professedly new translation, neither can we entirely approve of it in all re

DAVIDSON AND KALISCH.

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spects. Some of the inconsistences of it may deserve a passing notice; for instance, the word Passover is rendered by the Hebrew word, a Pesach in Exod. xii. 11, and elsewhere. And the expression, The Eternal, is substituted for Jehovah in three verses of the sixth chapter, (3,6,8), and also in c. xxxiv. 6; "and proclaimed the Eternal." This, also, we think indefensible, for although the original word may well admit of this signification, and though it has been adopted in some foreign Bibles, yet as this is certainly one of the most mysterious names of the God of Israel, it should have been left, we think, in the sublime obscurity of the original language; and if our word-Lord-is to be changed, it ought to be for the strictly Hebrew and unobjectionable word, Jehovah, for which there are undoubtedly strong reasons. But one of the strangest things in this work is the manner in which it deals with a great number of words and expressions in our present Bible, by placing them underneath the textual page, referring to them with this explanatory remark in the Preface, "Those renderings of the English version which we consider as erroneous conceptions, have been noted at the foot of our translation". Our readers will best judge for themselves of the justness of this designation by a few examples which we shall give below. Saving these erroneous conceptions, in which, though the phraseology is varied, the sense which Dr. Kalisch's translation gives is much the same, there are but few corrections of the English text which can be deemed essential. They do not, we believe, exceed a dozen in the whole book. To some of the principal of them we shall have occasion to refer in our general list; and we have therefore only to add here that Dr. Kalisch's volume is far more valuable

*

* The following are examples: "Waxed exceedingly mighty" (E.V.); grew exceedingly strong" (K) "And so get them up out of the land" (E.V.); "and go up out of the land" (K). "Store cities" (E. V.); "treasure cities" (K). "To wash herself" (E. V.); "to bathe" (K). "The babe wept" (E. V.); "a weeping boy" (K). "Backside of the desert" (E. V.); "behind the desert" (K). A bush" (E. V.); “a thorn bush" (K) (questionable). "I will now turn aside" (E V.); "I will first go thither" (K). "In the midst of the sea" (E. V.); "through the sea" (K). "He hath triumphed gloriously" (E. V.); "he is gloriously exalted" (K). "His chosen captains" (E. V.); "his choicest warriors" (K). "They be almost ready to stone me" (E. V.); "there is but little wanting and they will stone me" (K), &c. We have a great objection to the arrangement of the notes, and to the placing of the sheets after the Hebrew fashion, which begins the book at the wrong end, as we should call it. The notes following in the same order makes the reading of them at first quite a puzzle, especially where they are, as in some instances, of great length. As this is intended to be an English book, not a Hebrew one, we are at a loss to understand why the English order of placing the sheets should not be followed.