[15] Proofs that the Revisers have outrageously exceeded the Instructions they received from the Convocation of the Southern Province.

It follows next to enquire whether your work as Revisers was conducted in conformity with the conditions imposed upon you by the Southern House of Convocation, or not. “Nothing” (you say)—

“can be more unjust on the part of the Reviewer than to suggest, as he has suggested in more than one passage,[893] that the Revisers exceeded their Instructions in the course which they adopted with regard to the Greek Text. On the contrary, as we shall show, they adhered most closely to their Instructions; and did neither more nor less than they were required to do.”—(p. 32.)

“The Reviewer,” my lord Bishop, proceeds to demonstrate that you “exceeded your Instructions,” even to an extraordinary extent. But it will be convenient first to hear you out. You proceed,—

“Let us turn to the Rule. It is simply as follows:—‘That the text to be adopted be that for which the Evidence is decidedly preponderating: and that when the text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin.’ ”—(Ibid.)

But you seem to have forgotten that the “Rule” which you quote formed no part of the “Instructions” which were imposed upon you by Convocation. It was one of the “Principles agreed to by the Committee” (25 May, 1870),—a Rule of your own making therefore,—for which Convocation neither was nor is responsible. The “fundamental Resolutions adopted by the Convocation of Canterbury” (3rd and 5th May, 1870), five in number, contain no authorization whatever for making changes in the Greek Text. They have [pg 400] reference only to the work of revising “the Authorized Version:” an undertaking which the first Resolution declares to be “desirable.” “In order to ascertain what were the Revisers' Instructions with regard to the Greek Text,” we must refer to the original Resolution of Feb. 10th, 1870: in which the removal of “plain and clear errors, whether in the Greek Text originally adopted by the Translators, or in the Translation made from the same,”—is for the first and last time mentioned. That you yourself accepted this as the limit of your authority, is proved by your Speech in Convocation. “We may be satisfied” (you said) “with the attempt to correct plain and clear errors: but there, it is our duty to stop.”[894]

Now I venture to assert that not one in a hundred of the alterations you have actually made, “whether in the Greek Text originally adopted by the Translators, or in the Translation made from the same,” are corrections of “plain and clear errors.” Rather,—(to adopt the words of the learned Bishop of Lincoln,)—“I fear we must say in candour that in the Revised Version we meet in every page with changes which seem almost to be made for the sake of change.”[895] May I trouble you to refer back to p. 112 of the present volume for a few words more on this subject from the pen of the same judicious Prelate?

(a) And first,—In respect of the New English Version.

For my own part, (see above, pp. [171-2],) I thought the best thing I could do would be to illustrate the nature of my complaint, by citing and commenting on an actual instance of your method. I showed how, in revising eight-and-thirty words (2 Pet. i. 5-7), you had contrived to introduce no fewer than thirty changes,—every one of them being clearly [pg 401] a change for the worse. You will perhaps say,—Find me another such case! I find it, my lord Bishop, in S. Luke viii. 45, 46,—where you have made nineteen changes in revising the translation of four-and-thirty words. I proceed to transcribe the passage; requesting you to bear in mind your own emphatic protestation,—“We made no change if the meaning was fairly expressed by the word or phrase before us.”

A.V.R.V.
“Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.”“Peter said [1], and they that were with him, Master the multitudes [2] press [3] thee and crush thee [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.] But [11] Jesus said, Some one [12] did touch [14] me: for I perceived [15] that power [16] had [17] gone forth [18] from [19] me.”