seemed desirable under existing circumstances. After it had been completed we described it “as a tentamen, a careful endeavour, claiming no finality, inviting, rather than desiring to exclude, other attempts of the same kind, calling the attention of the Church to the many and anxious questions involved in rendering the Holy Scriptures into the vernacular language, and offering some help towards the settlement of those questions [12].”
The portion of Scripture selected was the Gospel according to St. John. Those who undertook the revision were five in number:—Dr. Barrow, the then Principal of St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford; Dr. Moberly, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury; Rev. Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury; Rev. W. G. Humphry, Vicar of St. Martin’s in the Fields; and lastly, the writer of this charge. Mr. Ernest Hawkins, busy as he was, acted to a great extent as our secretary, superintended arrangements,
and encouraged and assisted us in every possible manner. Our place of meeting was the library of our hospitable colleague Mr. Humphry. We worked in the greatest possible harmony, and happily and hopefully concluded our Revision of the Authorised Version of the Gospel of St. John in the month of March, 1857.
Our labours were introduced by a wise and attractive preface, written mainly by Dr. Moberly, in the lucid, reverent, and dignified language that marked everything that came from the pen of the late Bishop of Salisbury.
The effect produced by this tentamen was indisputably great. The work itself was of course widely criticized, but for the most part favourably [13]. The principles laid down in the preface were generally considered reasonable, and the possibilities of an authoritative revision distinctly increased. The work in fact became a kind of object lesson.
It showed plainly that there were errors in the Authorised Version that needed correction. It further showed that their removal and the introduction of improvements in regard of accuracy did not involve, either in quantity
or quality, the changes that were generally apprehended. And lastly, it showed in its results that scholars of different habits of thought could combine in the execution of such a work without friction or difficulty.
In regard of the Greek text but little change was introduced. The basis of our translation was the third edition of Stephens, from which we only departed when the amount of external evidence in favour of a different reading was plainly overwhelming. As we ourselves state in the preface, “our object was to revise a version, not to frame a text.” We should have obscured this one purpose if we had entered into textual criticism.
Such was the tentative version which prepared the way for authoritative revision.
More need not be said on this early effort. The version of the Gospel of St. John passed through three editions. The Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians appeared in 1858, and the first three of the remaining Epistles (Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians) in 1861. The third edition of the Revision of the Authorised Version of St. John was issued in 1863, with a preface in which the general estimate of the revision was discussed, and the probability indicated of some authoritative