educational colleges both in England and Scotland, and scholars like Dean Scott, who were known to take great interest in questions of textual criticism. A few of these might almost be considered as definitely experts, but all taken together certainly made a very competent body to whose independent judgement the settlement of difficult critical questions could be safely committed.
And, as I venture to think, the text which has been constructed from their decisions, their resultant text as it might be called, will show that the Revisers’ text is an independent text on which great reliance can be placed. It is the text which I always use myself in my general reading of the New Testament, and I deliberately regard it as one of the two best texts of the New Testament at present extant; the other being the cheap and convenient edition of Professor Nestle, bearing the title “Novum Testamentum Græce, cum apparatu critico ex editionibus et libris manu scriptis collecto. Stuttgart, 1898.” This edition is issued by the Würtemberg Bible Society, and will, as I hear, not improbably be adopted by our own Bible Society as their Greek Testament of the future.
The reason why I prefer these two texts
for the general reading of the sacred volume is this, that they both have much in common with the text of Westcott and Hort, but are free from those peculiarities and, I fear I must add, perversities, which do here and there mark the text of that justly celebrated edition. To Doctors Westcott and Hort all faithful students of the New Testament owe a debt of lasting gratitude which it is impossible to overestimate. Still, in the introductory volume by Dr. Hort, assumptions have been made, and principles laid down, which in several places have plainly affected the text, and led to the maintenance of readings which, to many minds, it will seem really impossible to accept. An instance has been given above on page 58, and this is by no means a solitary instance.
Having now shown fairly, I hope, and clearly the thoroughly independent character of the text which I have called the Revisers’ text, I will pass onward, and show the careful manner in which it was constructed, and the circumstances under which we have it in the continuous form in which it has been published by the Press of the University of Oxford.
To do this, it will be necessary to refer
to the rule under which we were directed to carry out this portion of our responsible work. We had two things to do—to revise the Authorised Version, and also to revise under certain specified limitations the Greek text from which the Authorised Version was made; or, in other words, the fifth edition of Beza’s Greek Testament, published in the year 1698. The rule under which this second portion of our work was to be performed was as follows: “That the text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and [let this be noted] that when the text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorised Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.” Such was the rule in regard of the text, and such was the instruction as to the mode of notifying any alterations that it might have been found necessary to make.
Let us deal first with the direction as to notifying the alterations. Now as it was soon found practically impossible to place all the alterations in a margin which would certainly be needed for alternative renderings, and for such matters as usually appear in a margin, we left the University Presses to publish, in such manner as they might think
most convenient, the deviations from the Greek text presumed to underlie the Authorised Version. The Cambridge University Press entrusted to Dr. Scrivener the publication of the Received Text with the alterations of the Revisers placed at the foot of the page. The Oxford University Press adopted the more convenient method of letting the alterations form part of the continuous text (the readings they displaced being at the foot of the page), and entrusted the editing of the volume to Archdeacon Palmer (one of our Company) who, as we know, performed the duty with great care and accuracy. Hence the existence of what I term throughout this address as the Revisers’ text.
We can now turn to the first part of the rule and describe in general terms the mode of our procedure. It differs very slightly from the mode described in the preface of the Revisers of the Old Testament. The verse on which we were engaged was read by the Chairman. The first question asked was, whether there was any difference of reading in the Greek text which required our consideration. If there was none, we proceeded with the second part of our work, the consideration of the rendering. If there was