More ambitious attempts at amending the new version were not lacking, but they all proved fruitless, until in February 1870 the Convocation of Canterbury appointed a committee to consider the subject of revision. The report of The Revised Version. this committee, presented in May, was adopted, to the effect “that Convocation should nominate a body of its own members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong”; and shortly afterwards two companies were formed for the revision of the Authorized Version of the Old and New Testaments.
These companies consisted of the following:—1. For the Old Testament:—(α) Appointed by Convocation.—Connop Thirlwall, bishop of St David’s (d. 1875); Alfred Ollivant (1798-1882), bishop of Llandaff; E. Harold Browne (1811-1891), bishop of Ely; Christopher Wordsworth, bishop of Lincoln; and Lord Arthur Hervey (1808-1894), bishop of Bath and Wells; Archdeacon H.J. Rose (d. 1873); William Selwyn (1806-1875), canon of Ely and Lady Margaret professor at Cambridge; Dr John Jebb (1805-1886), canon of Hereford; and Dr William Kay (1820-1886). (β) Invited.—Dr William Lindsay Alexander (1808-1884), congregational minister; Thomas Chenery (1826-1884), professor of Arabic at Oxford, and afterwards (1877) editor of The Times; Frederick Charles Cook (1810-1889), canon of Exeter; Professor A.B. Davidson; Dr Benjamin Davies (1814-1875), professor of oriental and classical languages at Stepney Baptist College; the Rev. A.M. Fairbairn, congregationalist; the Rev. Frederick Field (1801-1885), fellow of Trinity, Cambridge; Dr C.D. Ginsburg; the Rev. Dr Gotch of Bristol; Archdeacon Benjamin Harrison (1808-1887), Hebraist; the Rev. Stanley Leathes (1830-1900), professor of Hebrew at King’s College, London; Professor M’Gill; Canon Robert Payne Smith (1819-1895), regius professor of divinity at Oxford, dean of Canterbury (1870); Professor J.J.S. Perowne, afterwards bishop of Worcester; the Rev. Edward Hayes Plumtre (1821-1891), professor of exegesis at King’s College, London, afterwards dean of Wells; Canon E. Bouverie Pusey; William Wright (1830-1889), the orientalist; W. Aldis Wright, Cambridge. Of these Canons Cook and Pusey declined to serve, and ten members died during the progress of the work. The secretary of the company was Mr W. Aldis Wright, fellow of Trinity, Cambridge.
2. For the New Testament:—(α) Appointed by Convocation.—Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Winchester; Charles J. Ellicott, bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; and George Moberly, bishop of Salisbury; Dr Edward Bickersteth (1814-1892), prolocutor of the lower house of convocation; Henry Alford, dean of Canterbury, and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, dean of Westminster; Joseph Williams Blakesley (1808-1885), canon of Canterbury, and (1872) dean of Lincoln. (β) Invited.—The Rev. Dr Joseph Angus, president of the Stepney Baptist College; Dr David Brown; Richard Chenevix Trench, archbishop of Dublin; the Rev. Dr John Eadie (1810-1876), Presbyterian; the Rev. F.J.A. Hort; the Rev. W.G. Humphry (1815-1886), vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London; the Rev. Benjamin Hall Kennedy, canon of Ely; William Lee (1815-1883), archdeacon of Dublin, and professor of ecclesiastical history in the university; J.B. Lightfoot, afterwards bishop of Durham; Professor William Milligan; the Rev. William Fieldian Moulton (1835-1898), Wesleyan biblical scholar; Dr J.H. Newman; the Rev. Samuel Newth (1821-1898), congregationalist, professor of ecclesiastical history at, and afterwards president of, New College, London; Dr A. Roberts; the Rev. G. Vance Smith; Dr Robert Scott; the Rev. F.H.A. Scrivener (1813-1891), rector of St Gerrans, Cornwall; Charles Wordsworth, bishop of St Andrews; Dr W.H. Thompson; Dr S.P. Tregelles; Dr C.J. Vaughan; Canon Westcott. Of these, Dr Thompson and Dr Newman declined to serve. Dean Alford, Dr Tregelles, Bishop Wilberforce and Dr Eadie were removed by death. Only the first vacancy was filled up. Dean Merivale was co-opted, and on his resignation Professor, afterwards Archdeacon, Edwin Palmer. The Rev. J. Troutbeck, minor canon of Westminster, acted as secretary.
Negotiations were opened with the leading scholars of the Protestant denominations in America, with the result that similar companies were formed in the United States. The work of the English revisers was regularly submitted to their consideration; their comments were carefully considered and largely adopted, and their divergences from the version ultimately agreed upon were printed in an appendix to the published work. Thus the Revised Version was the achievement of English-speaking Christendom as a whole; only the Roman Catholic Church, of the great English-speaking denominations, refused to take part in the undertaking. The Church of England, which had put forth the version of 1611, fitly initiated the work, but for its performance most wisely invited the help of the sister churches. The delegates of the Clarendon Press in Oxford, and the syndics of the Pitt Press in Cambridge, entered into a liberal arrangement with the revisers, by which the necessary funds were provided for all their expenses. On the completion of its work the New Testament company divided itself into three committees, working at London, Westminster and Cambridge, for the purpose of revising the Apocrypha.
The work of the Old Testament company was different in some important respects from that which engaged the attention of the New Testament company. The received Hebrew text has undergone but little emendation, and the revisers had before them substantially the same Massoretic text which was in the hands of the translators of 1611. It was felt that there was no sufficient justification to make any attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the authority of the versions. The Old Testament revisers were therefore spared much of the labour of deciding between different readings, which formed one of the most important duties of the New Testament company. But the advance in the study of Hebrew since the early part of the 17th century enabled them to give a more faithful translation of the received text. The value of their work is evident, especially in Job, Ecclesiastes and the prophetical books.
It is the work of the New Testament committee which has attracted most attention, whether for blame or praise. The critical resources at the disposal of scholars in 1611 were very meagre, and the few early manuscripts with which they were acquainted failed to receive the attention they deserved. The results of modern critical methods could not fail to make the incompleteness of the “Received Text,” and of the “Authorized Version,” which was based on it, obvious. It had long been the opinion of all competent scholars that a thorough revision was necessary. A proposal in favour of this course was made in Convocation in 1856, but it was not until fourteen years later that the committee was appointed to undertake the work. The revisers’ first task was to reconstruct the Greek text, as the necessary foundation of their work. In this difficult duty they were no doubt influenced by Westcott and Hort’s edition of the New Testament. These two scholars were members of the committee which prepared the Revised Version, and on the question of various readings they appear to have exercised a predominating influence. The revisers were privately supplied with instalments of Westcott and Hort’s text as their work required them. But it is scarcely necessary to say that the Revised Version is not the work of one or two scholars. Different schools of criticism were represented on the committee, and the most careful discussion took place before any decision was formed. Every precaution was taken to ensure that the version should represent the result of the best scholarship of the time, applied to the work before it with constant devotion and with the highest sense of responsibility. The changes in the Greek text of the Authorized Version when compared with the textus receptus are numerous, but the contrast between the English versions of 1611 and 1881 is all the more striking because of the difference in the method of translation which was adopted. The revisers aimed at the most scrupulous faithfulness. They adopted the plan—deliberately rejected by the translators of 1611—of always using the same English word for the same Greek word. “They endeavoured to enable the English reader to follow the correspondences of the original with the closest exactness, to catch the solemn repetition of words and phrases, to mark the subtleties of expression, to feel even the strangeness of unusual forms of speech.”
The revision of the New Testament was completed in 407 meetings, distributed over more than ten years. It was formally presented to Convocation on May 17, 1881. The revision of the Old Testament occupied 792 days, and was finished on June 20, 1884. The revised Apocrypha did not make its appearance until 1895.
The text of the Revised Version is printed in paragraphs, the old division of books into chapters and verses being retained for convenience of reference. By this arrangement the capricious divisions of some books is avoided. Various editions of the New Version have been published, the most complete being the edition of the whole Bible with marginal references. These references had their origin in the work of two small subcommittees of the revisers, but they received their present form at the hands of a specially appointed committee. The marginal references given in the original edition of the Authorized Version of 1611 have been retained as far as possible.
The work of the revisers was received without enthusiasm. It was too thorough for the majority of religious people. Partisans found that havoc had been played with their proof texts. Ecclesiastical conservatives were scandalized by the freedom with which the traditional text was treated. The advocates of change were discontented with the hesitating acceptance which their principles had obtained. The most vulnerable side of the revision was that on which the mass of English readers thought itself capable of forming a judgment. The general effect of so many small alterations was to spoil the familiar sonorous style of the Authorized Version. The changes were freely denounced as equally petty and vexatious; they were, moreover, too often inconsistent with the avowed principles of the revisers. The method of determining readings and renderings by vote was not favourable to the consistency and literary character of the Version. A whole literature of criticism and apology made its appearance, and the achievement of so many years of patient labour seemed destined to perish in a storm of resentments. On the whole, the Revised Version weathered the storm more successfully than might have been expected. Its considerable excellences were better realized by students than stated by apologists. The hue and cry of the critics largely died away, and was replaced by a calmer and juster appreciation.
The work of the revisers has been sharply criticized from the standpoint of specialists in New Testament Greek. Dr Rutherford stated the case briefly and pointedly in the preface to his translation of the Epistle to the Romans (London, 1900). He maintains that “the Greek of the New Testament may never be understood as classical Greek is understood,” and accuses the revisers of distorting the meaning “by translating in accordance with Attic idiom phrases that convey in later Greek a wholly different sense, the sense which the earlier translators in happy ignorance had recognized that the context demanded.”