Lectures on Bible Revision

by Samuel Newth

And lastly, that a complete list of Genealogies[47] and a description of the Holy Land should be added to the work.[48]

From various causes, which cannot now be discovered, a period of three years elapsed before the revisers commenced their labours. One reason may have been that no provision was made for meeting the necessary costs of the undertaking. With a cheap liberality the king directed Bancroft to write to the bishops, asking them, as benefices became vacant, to give him the opportunity of bestowing them upon the translators as a reward for their service; and as to current expenses, the king, while professing with much effusiveness his readiness to bear them, cleverly evaded the responsibility by stating that some of “my lords, as things now go, did hold it inconvenient.”[49]

The revision was completed, as the revisers themselves tell us, in “twice seven times seventy-two days and more;” that is to say, in about two years and three-quarters; and if to this be added the nine months spent in a final revision and preparation for the press, we have then only a period of three years and a half. The new Bible was published in 1611; the work, therefore, could not have been commenced before 1607.

Although the men who engaged in this important undertaking are called “translators,” their work was essentially that of revision. This is clearly shown both by the rules laid down for their guidance, and by the statement of the translators themselves, who say in their preface, “Truly, good Christian reader, wee never thought from the beginning that wee should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one,” “but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principall good one, not justly to bee excepted against; that hath beene our indeavour, that our marke.”[50]

Further, this revision was a more extensive and thorough revision than any which had been heretofore undertaken. In former revisions, either the work had been done by the solitary labours of one or two, or when a fair number of competent men were engaged in it no sufficient provision had been made for combined action, and but few opportunities had been given for mutual conference. In this revision a larger number of scholars were engaged than upon any former, and the arrangements were such as secured that upon no part of the Bible should the labour of fewer than seven persons be expended. The revisers were divided into six companies, two of which met at Westminster, two at Cambridge, and two at Oxford. The books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to 2 Kings inclusive, were assigned to the first Westminster company, consisting of ten members; from 1 Chronicles to Song of Solomon, to the first Cambridge company, consisting of eight members; and from Isaiah to Malachi, to the first Oxford company, consisting of seven members. The Apocryphal books were assigned to the second Cambridge company, which also consisted of seven members. Of the books of the New Testament, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse were given to the second Oxford company, in which as many as ten members were at different times associated; the Epistles were entrusted to the seven scholars forming the second Westminster company.[51]

The portions assigned to each company were not again subdivided amongst its members; but, in accordance with the eighth rule, “every particular man of each company” translated and amended by himself each successive portion, and the company met from time to time to confer upon what they had done, and to agree upon what should stand.[52] Of the mode of procedure followed at the meetings of the several companies, we have no other information than the brief statement given by Selden in his Table Talk—that “one read the translation, the rest holding in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c. If they found any fault they spoke; if not, he read on.”

One interesting and touching picture of the translators at work, which however seems to have escaped the notice[53] of all writers upon the history of the English Bible, is given us by Dr. Daniel Featley in his account of the Life and Death of John Rainolds, and which is probably the substance, if not the very words, of the oration delivered by him at the funeral of the latter, when, on account of the large number of mourners, “the Chapell being not capable of the fourth part of the Funerall troupe,” a desk was set up in the quadrangle of Corpus Christi College, and a brief history of Rainolds’ life, “with the manner of his death,” was thence delivered to the assembled company. Dr. Rainolds was one of the Oxford scholars to whom the difficult task was assigned of revising the prophetical books of the Old Testament; and Featley tells us that “for his great skill in the originall Languages,” the other members of the company, “Doctor Smith, afterward Bishop of Gloster; Doctor Harding, President of Magdalens; Doctor Kilbie, Rector of Lincolne Colledge; Dr. Bret, and others, imployed in that worke by his Majesty, had recourse” to him “once a weeke, and in his Lodgings perfected their Notes; and though in the midst of this Worke, the gout first tooke him, and after a consumption, of which he dyed; yet in a great part of his sicknesse the meeting held at his Lodging, and he lying on his Pallet, assisted them, and in a manner in the very translation of the booke of life, was translated to a better life.”[54] Rainolds died May 21st, 1607.

In the discharge of their responsible task the translators made use of all the aids accessible to them for the perfecting of their work. Not only did they bring to it a large amount of Hebrew and Greek scholarship, and the results of their personal study of the original Scriptures, they were careful to avail themselves also of the investigations of others who had laboured in the same field. Translations and commentaries in the Chaldee, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch languages were laid under contribution. “Neither,” they add, “did we disdaine to revise that which wee had done, and to bring back to the anvill that which wee had hammered; but having and using as great helpes as were needfull, and fearing no reproch for slownesse, nor coveting praise for expedition, wee have at length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the worke to that passe that you see.”

When the several companies had completed their labours there was needed some general supervision of the work before it finally issued from the press. There is no evidence that the six companies ever met in one body (though possibly the two companies in each of the three centres may have had some communication with each other); but having spent almost three years upon the revision, “at the end whereof,” says the writer of the life of John Bois,[55] “the whole work being finished, and three copies of the whole Bible sent from Cambridge, Oxford, and Westminster to London, a new choice was to be made of six in all, two out of every company,[56] to review the whole work, and extract one copy out of all these to be committed to the press, for the dispatch of which business Mr. Downes and Mr. Bois were sent for up to London, where,[57] meeting their four fellow-labourers, they went daily to Stationers’ Hall, and in three-quarters of a year fulfilled their task, all which time they had from the Company of Stationers thirty shillings[58] each per week duly paid them, though they had nothing before but the self-rewarding, ingenious industry.”[59] “Last of all Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Miles Smith, again reviewed the whole work, and prefixed arguments to the several books.”

And thus at length, as Thomas Fuller quaintly puts it, “after long expectation, and great desire, the new translation of the Bible (most beautifully printed) by a select and competent number of Divines appointed for the purpose, not being too many, lest one should trouble another, and yet many, lest in any things might haply escape them. Who, neither coveting praise for expedition, nor fearing reproach for slackness (seeing in a business of moment none deserve blame for convenient slowness), had expended almost three years in a work, not only examining the channels by the fountain, translations with the original, which was absolutely necessary, but also comparing channels with channels, which was abundantly useful.” “These, with Jacob, rolled away the stone from the mouth of the Well of Life, so that now Rachel’s weak women may freely come, both to drink themselves, and to water the flocks of their families at the same.”[60]