Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy ScriptureEllicott, C. J. (Charles John)
Religion
Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture
Ellicott, C. J. (Charles John)
Bible. English -- Versions -- Revised
It is difficult to say much on the Revised Version of the Book of Psalms,
as Coverdale's Version, as we have it in our Prayer Book, so completely
occupies the foreground of memory and devotional interest, that I fear
comparatively few study the Bible Version or the careful and conservative
work of the Revisers. This Revision, however, of the version of the Book
of Psalms deserves more attention than it appears to have received. Not
only will the faithful reader find in it the necessary corrections of the
version of 1611, but clear guidance as to the meaning of the sometimes
utterly unintelligible renderings of the version of the Great Bible which
still holds its place in our Prayer Books. To take two examples: let the
reader look at the Authorised Version and Prayer Book Version of Psalm
lxviii. 16, and of lxxxiv. 5, 6, and contrast with both the rendering of
the Revised Version. This last-mentioned rendering will be found, as I
have said, to correct the Authorised Version, and (especially in the
second passage) to remove what is unintelligible in the Prayer Book
version. It may thus be used by the Prayer Book reader of the Psalms as
a ready and easily accessible means of arriving at the real meaning of
the many ambiguities and obscurities which long familiarity with the
Prayer Book Version has led him to pass over without any particular
notice. The revision of the Prayer Book Version has been long felt to be
a very real necessity. To read and to hear read in the daily services of
the Church what, in parts, cannot be understood can never be spiritually
good for reader or hearer. And yet, such is the really devout
conservatism of the bulk of our congregations, that though a careful
revision, sympathetically executed, has been strongly urged by some of
our most earnest scholars and divines, it is more than doubtful whether
such a revision ever will be carried out. If this be so, it only remains
for us so to encourage, in our schools and in our Bible classes, the
efficient explanatory help of the Revised Version. If this is steadily
done, nearly all that is at present obscure or unintelligible in the
Prayer Book Version will no longer remain so to the greater part of our
worshippers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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