Acts vi. 3. “Look ye out among you seven men of honest report ... whom ye may appoint,” for “whom we may appoint.” 1638, Camb. fo.[64]
1 Cor. v. 1. “And such fornication as is not so much as not among the Gentiles,” for “not so much as named.” 1629, Lond., fo.[65]
1 Cor. vi. 9. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?” for “shall not inherit.” 1653, Lond., 32mo.
2 Tim. iv. 16. “I pray God that it may be laid to their charge,” for “may not be laid.” 1613, Lond.
Titus i. 14. “Now giving heed to Jewish fables,” for “not giving heed.” 1636 Edin., 8vo.
James v. 4. “The Lord of Sabbath,” for “Sabaoth.” 1640, Lond., 8vo.
1 John i. 4. “That our joy may be full,” for “that your joy.” 1769, Oxf.
These facts will serve to show how soon some kind of revision became needful, and that a true reverence for Scripture is shown, not by opposition to revision, but by a desire, and even demand, that it should be undertaken. This necessity became all the more imperative in the case of the revision of 1611, because there existed no standard copy to which appeal could in all cases be made as evidence of the conclusions reached by the translators. It is a curious and remarkable fact, that two editions, differing in several respects, were issued by the king’s printer, Robert Barker, in 1611, and competent judges are not agreed as to which of these two priority in time belongs. Nor even if this point were satisfactorily settled, would it suffice to reproduce that one of the two texts which might be proved to be the earlier. For excellent as was the main work done by the translators, the final revision and the oversight of the sheets as they passed through the press were not so thorough as was to be desired. In the most carefully prepared edition of this revision that has ever been issued, viz., the Cambridge Paragraph Bible, edited by Dr. Scrivener, the learned and laborious editor has seen it right to depart from the printed text of 1611 in more than nine hundred places.[66] It will be manifest that such corrections, whenever called for, ought not to be made in any haphazard way, and that it is in the interest of all that careful revisions of the printed texts should from time to time be made, and that they should be made by men thoroughly competent for the task.
The second cause to which reference has been made is, of course, much slower in its operation, but though slow it is certain; and sooner or later every version, whensoever and by whomsoever made, must call for revision, because of the changes to which all language is subject. Words which were once in common use pass altogether out of currency, and are utterly unintelligible save to a learned few. Other words change their meaning, and give to the sentences in which they occur a different and sometimes an alien sense to that which they formerly conveyed. Others again, while retaining fundamentally their original sense, become limited in their range of application, and when used in other connections than those to which they are thus confined by custom, become grotesque and disturb the mind of the reader by the strange associations which they suggest.