Art. X. Reflections, on the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures, intended to shew its Defects and the Necessity of attempting to improve it, with a Specimen of such an Attempt. By B. Boothroyd, 4to. pp. 58. Gale and Co. 1816.

IT is probably well known to the generality of our readers, that we are indebted for the first printed edition of any part of the Scriptures in the English language, to William Tyndal. This distinguished person embraced the doctrine of the Reformation, and having thus rendered himself obnoxious to the Romish hierarchy, he was compelled to leave England, his native country, and seek an asylum in foreign lands. For some time he travelled in Germany, where he became personally acquainted with Luther; he afterwards removed into the Netherlands, and fixed his residence at Antwerp. Justly supposing that the circulation of the Scriptures in the vernacular language, would be efficacious as a means to oppose the superstitions of his countrymen, and of directing their attention to the truth, he projected a translation of the New Testament, and having obtained the assistance of John Fryth, who had been educated at Cambridge, he completed this important work, which was published at Antwerp about three years after the first edition of Luther's German version, in 1523.

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The effects produced by this translation of the Scriptures into' the English language, may be estimated by the conduct of its adversaries, the Popish clergy, whose authority was not then broken in this country. They alleged that it was not possible to translate the Scriptures into English; they asserted that it was not lawful for the laity to possess them in their mother tongue; that it would make them all heretics; and that rebellion against the civil government would be the consequence of every man's reading the word of God for himself. And so excessive was their hatred, that they committed Tyndal's books to the flames, and soon after procured the death of this great man. malice and cruelty of these Popish persecutors against the cause which Tyndal had so nobly and so well supported, were vain. They could not extinguish the light which he had kindled. Other competent men came forward to put a finishing hand to Tyndal's undertaking. Tyndal had resolved on translating the whole Bible, and in the execution of his design had proceeded to the end of Nehemiah. Miles Coverdale and John Rogers had been coadjutors with him, and these two persons proceeded separately with the work till it was completed. Coverdale published an edition of the whole Bible, at Zurich, in 1535, which was the first printed Bible in the English language, and is known by the name of its Editor. Rogers also completed the translation which Tyndal had begun, and an

edition of 1500 copies was printed in 1537, at Hamburgh, by Grafton and Whitechurch. This was called Matthews's Bible; a feigned name being affixed to the title-page instead of Tyndal's, from the apprehension that as he had been put to death as a heretic, his name might prejudice the public against the work. The subsequent English Bibles-The "Great Bible," in 1539,--" Cranmer's Bible," in 1540,-The "Geneva Bible," in 1557,-The "Bishops' Bible," in 1568, and the present public version, first printed in 1611, were only so many several revisions of Tyndal's Bible. King James's Translators were expressly ordered to follow the Bishops' Bible, which they were to alter as little as the original necessarily demanded, and they were to use the translations of Tyndal, Matthews, Coverdale, Whitechurch, and the Geneva, when they came closer to the original than the Bishops' Bible. To represent the present public version as an entirely New Translation, is to state what is contrary to the historical fact. It is only a revised impression of a former version, and therefore instead of supplying reasons against a new translation, or a new revision, it is actually a precedent in favour of the latter.

Between the years 1535, the date of the original publication of the English Bible, and 1611, the date of the last revision, an interval of seventy-four years elapsed, in the course of which the public version of the Scriptures had been revised at least five times. Since 1611, when the present Common Version was first put into circulation, a period of no fewer than two hundred and five years has elapsed, during the whole of which, to the present moment, no revision of the English Common Bible has been attempted.

To what cause is this to be attributed? Were our ancestors more solicitous to possess a correct translation of the Divine word, than their descendants? Or was the revision ordered by James I. so accurately executed, as to attain at once the standard of perfection, and thus to supersede all farther attempts at amendment? The affirmative of the first question might justly cover us with shame; and to assign the perfection of the Common Version as a reason for not revising or translating the sacred Scriptures de novo, would be absolute folly. Had the present version, at the time when it was first circulated, been an exact representation of the Hebrew and Greek originals, which it certainly was not, there would still be reasons for a revision of it, which no objections could invalidate. But, as in addition to circumstances on which those reasons are grounded, there are others which regard the fidelity of the version itself, we are furnished with unanswerable reasons for maintaining the necessity of a revision of the English Bible, which would seem to be a more satisfactory proceeding than an entirely New Translation.

It is a well known and undeniable fact, that the learned men who made the revision in 1611, were not supplied with materials so ample and efficient for amending the translation as those which are now in our power. Learning has not been slumbering for the last two hundred years.Light sprung up during that long period, and it penetrated and has dissipated the darkness which obscured those of early times. Advances have been made in philology and criticism. The 'publication of Polyglots, of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of ancient and modern ' versions, of Lexicons, Concordances, critical Dissertations and Sermons; books of Eastern Travels; Disquisitions on the Geography, Customs, and Natural History of the East; ' accurate tables of chronology, coins, weights and measures,' have contributed essentially toward the improvement and elucidation of the Bible. What powerful aid has been afforded for the better understanding of the Hebrew and Greek originals, by the labours of Walton, Castell, Mill, Wetstein, Griesbach, Michaelis, Bochart, Lightfoot, Grotius, Poole, and many other illustrious writers! It must be evident, therefore, to all intelligent and unprejudiced men, that the early part of the seventeenth century was in all respects less favourable than the present time, for the publication of a correct edition of the English Bible.

Strongly rooted prejudices exist, there is too much reason to fear, in the minds of many, against an amendment of the public version. The very circumstance of there having been no revision of the common translation for upwards of two centuries, has contributed in no inconsiderable degree to cherish and augment those prejudices. Had the public version been repeatedly and recently revised, had every new impression contained corrections and improvements of preceding impressions, and the alterations which the growing advantages of succeeding years might have required, been regularly made, the public attention would have been so repeatedly fixed upon the subject, that no alarm would have been felt, nor any objection have arisen against the measure of revision. No evil consequences followed the repeated revisions of the English Bible in the sixteenth century. The amended version of 1611, produced no unpleasant effects; and there is not the smallest occasion to fear that in a more enlightened age a corrected publication of the Scriptures would be attended with any other than beneficial results.

The ministers of the Established Church, it should seem, virtually pledge themselves to the revision of the Common Version, since the assent which is required from them to all and every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, binds them to an approval of a version of a part of the Bible, different

from the common translation. They read in their churches passages as the word of God, which their hearers, on looking into their common Bibles, cannot find but in a sense very different from that which was read to them from the desk. The translation of the Psalms, as inserted in the Book of Common Prayer, varies essentially from the Bible translation. If the former gives the true meaning of the Divine Word, the latter cannot in those several cases in which discrepancies exist. The approbation of the one version necessarily implies the condemnation of the other. No clergyman, surely, would inform an inquirer, that the Psalter is the word of God, but that the Psalms in the Bible translation are not the word of God; nor, vice versa, that the Bible translation of the Psalms is the true word of God, but that the Psalter is not. He must reply, that the differences between the two versions are occasioned by errors in the translation of one or of both of them. This is the only proper answer which he could give, and it would surely be immediately remarked by the inquirer, and admitted by the other party, that the errors of translation ought to be corrected. If the Psalter be correct, let the Bible translation be made conformable with it; or if the former be erroneous, let it be amended by means of the latter. It is impossible for the same persons to maintain that the same passages in the original can convey two very different senses in a correct translation. As the assent of the clergy to the Book of Common Prayer includes the approval of the sense as given in the Psalter version, they, to be consistent, must plead for a revision of the Bible, at least for the revision of a part of it; and as no good reason can be assigned for reading the same passages of the Bible in a different sense in the service of any Church, the following discrepancies supply an unanswerable argument for revising the public version.

Common Version.

Ps. vii. 11. "God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day."

xxii. 30. "A seed shall serve him."

xxix. 1. “Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength."

xxx. "To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent."

xxxvii. 37. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."

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xlv. 4. And in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth."

lxxi. 7. "I am as a wonder un. to many."

lxxii. 6. "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass." cv. 28. And they rebelled not against his word."

"Good luck have thou with thine honour: ride on because of the word of truth."

-"I am become as it were a monster unto many."

"He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool." "And they were not obedient unto his word."

Mr Boothroyd's publication is divided into nine sections. In the first is given a short account of the ancient, and of the English versions of the Holy Scriptures. The second contains the opinions of some distinguished divines and critics on the authorized version, intended to shew that it admits of improvement; those of Doddridge, Durell, Bishop Lowth, Blaney, Symonds, and Blackwall, are inserted in this section the opinions of Archbishop Newcome, and the present Bishop of I andaff, (Dr. Marsh,) occur in other parts of the work. The following sections comprise the Reasons which the Author assigns for his attempting a new translation.

The first reason assigned by the Author, for the present attempt to improve the public version of the Scriptures, is the imperfect and erroneous state of the Hebrew and Greek texts from which the common translation was made. Owing to this cause, the beauty and symmetry of the sacred writings are often injured; contradictions which no ingenuity has been able to reconcile, have been introduced; and omissions and interpolations are numerous in the Common Version. Each of these particulars is accompanied with appropriate examples.

• No approximation,' Mr. Boothroyd remarks, can be made towards a perfect version of the Hebrew Scriptures, unless the translator be allowed to supply the acknowledged deficiencies, and correct the manifest errors of the original texts, by the aid of manuscripts, the ancient versions, and the rules of sound and temperate criticism. With what success this method has been adopted by Dr. Lowth in his improved version of Isaiah, by Dr. Blaney in his version of Jeremiah, and by Archbishop Newcome in his version of the Minor Prophets, the learned are generally agreed; and the same judicious method pursued in reference to the whole Scriptures, cannot fail to be attended with a similar result.'

Conjectural emendation is one of the means of removing the errors of the original text, which the Author proposes to employ a desperate remedy, and one which, we trust, will be used with extreme caution in the proposed translation. It is, we allow, highly probable, that neither existing manuscripts, nor versions, have preserved in their primitive state the whole of the readings of the Hebrew Bible and Greek Testament;