Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture

by C. J. Ellicott

I feel now that I have said all that it may be well for me to have laid before you. I have used no tone of authority; I have not urged in any way the introduction of the Revised Version, or that the plan of introducing it should be adopted by any one among you. I have contented myself with having shown that it is feasible; and I have definitely stated

my opinion that, if it were to be adopted, it is in a high degree probable that a fresh interest in the Holy Scriptures would be awakened, and the love of God’s Holy Word again found to be a living reality.

Perhaps the present time may be of greater moment in regard of the study of Holy Scripture, and especially of the language of the Greek Testament, than we may now be able distinctly to foresee. I mentioned in my last Address the large amount of research, during the last fifteen years, in reference to the Greek of the New Testament and the position which the sacred volume, considered simply historically and as a collection of writings in the Greek language of the first century after Christ, really does hold in the general history of a language which, in its latest form, is widely spoken to this very day. I mentioned also what seemed to be the most reasonable opinion, viz. that the Greek of the New Testament was the spoken Greek of the time, neither literary Greek nor the Greek of the lower class, but Greek such as men would use at that time when they had to place in the definiteness of writing the language which passed from their lips in their converse with their fellow-men. Now, that advantage will

be taken of this, and that it will be used to show that the spiritual deductions that we draw from the written words cannot be fully relied on, because old distinctions have been obscured or obliterated, is what I fear, in days such as these, will often be used against the faithful reading, marking, and learning of the Written Word. But we shall hear them, I hope, with the two true conclusive answers ever present in the soul, the answer of plain human reasoning, and the deeper answer which revelation brings seriously home to us. In regard of the first answer, does not plain common sense justify us in maintaining that the writers meant what they wrote, and that when they used certain Greek words in the mighty message they were delivering to their fellow-men and to all who should hereafter receive it, they did mean that those words were to be understood in the plain and simple meaning that every plain reader would assign to them. They were not speaking; they were writing; and they were writing what they knew was to be for all time. Thus to take an example from the passages above referred to of which Bishop Westcott makes such impressive use, who can doubt, with any fair show of reason—however frequent may be the interchange of the particular prepositions

in the first century—that, in those passages, when St. Matthew wrote εις he did mean into; and that when St. Paul used εν, he did mean in, in the simplest sense of the word?

But to the devout Christian we have a far deeper answer than the answer we have just considered.

In the first place, does not the manifold wisdom of God reveal itself to our poor human thoughts in His choice of a widespread spoken language, just by its very diffusion readily lending itself to the reception of new words and new thoughts as the medium by which the Gospel message was communicated to the children of men? Just as the particular period of Christ’s manifestation has ever been reverently regarded as a revelation of the manifold nature of the eternal wisdom, so may we not see the same in the choice of a language, at a particular period of its development, as the bearer of the message of salvation to mankind? Surely this is a manifestation of the Divine wisdom which must ever be seen and felt whenever the outward character of the Greek of the New Testament is dwelt upon by the truth-seeking spirit of the reverent believer.

And is there not a second thought, far too much lost sight of in our investigation of the written word of the New Testament—that just as the writers had their human powers quickened and strengthened by the Holy Ghost for the full setting forth of the Gospel message by their spoken words, so in regard of their written words would the same blessed guidance be vouchsafed to them? And if so, is it not right for us, not only to draw from their words all that by the plain laws of language they can be understood to convey to us, but also to do what has been done in the Revised Version, and to find the nearest equivalent our language supplies for the words in the original?

These thoughts might be carried much further, but enough has been said to justify the minute care that has been taken in the renderings of the written word of the New Testament by the Revisers, and further, the validity of the deductions that may be drawn from their use of one word rather than another, especially in the case of words that might seem to be practically synonymous. It may be quite true that, in the current Greek of the time, many of the distinctions that were valid in an earlier period of the

language were no longer observed; and of this we find many indications in the Greek Testament. But it must be remembered that we also find in the Greek Testament a vastly preponderating portion of what is grammatically correct according to the earlier standard, and often clear indications that what was so written must have been definitely meant by the writer. Is it not then our clearest duty, remembering always that what we are translating is the Gospel message, to do what the Revisers did, to render each passage in accordance with the recognized meaning of the words, and in harmony with the plain tenor of the context?