Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 43:171 (Jul 1886)
Article: The Revision Of Genesis
Author: Charles R. Brown

BSac 43:171 (July 1886) p. 507

The Revision Of Genesis

Rev. Charles R. Brown

When the writer set about the fulfilment of an engagement made before the Revised Version was issued, the following seemed to him like suitable working rules :—

1i. He resolved to be as frank in his criticism of the Version as though it had fulfilled his expectations.

2. He endeavored to fortify himself against allowing his keen disappointment at the extreme conservatism of the Revision to prejudice his judgment against the real excellences of that version.

3. He decided that he must not allow his inexperience even to excuse him for silence on disputed questions; and he reflected that in any objection he might make he would not knowingly call in question the opinion of any individual scholar on the Revision Committee, but only the corporate opinion, and, indeed, not that, absolutely speaking, but only relatively to the question of change. Furthermore, in preferences he might have for marginal readings, he knew that, in most cases, he would carry with him the vote of more than half of the English Revisers. He could not presume to suggest that his own preferences in every case were not considered by the Committee, for that would be to condemn them at the outset. The Revisers were scholars, and had before them the tools of scholarship. The issue to be drawn, then, must be on the question of judgment. Certain renderings being desirable on general principles, was it worth while to alter the A. V.?

4. He assumed that all alterations should be consistent with each other, and with what is left unaltered.

5. He concluded that a change should have been made whenever the balance of probability is in favor of a different rendering. That different rendering need not be certainly correct, provided the A. V. be certainly, or even probably, incorrect.

6. While slight changes are often desirable, the writer felt that he ought not to criticise the Revision for any failure to make these, even though they may have done so in many other directions. Only when a change would

BSac 43:171 (July 1886) p. 508

involve manifest improvement will the failure to make such change be noticed.

7. It was thought better by the writer to make a careful and minute examination of a small portion of the Old Testament, and he therefore selected the Book of Genesis as the basis of his estimate.

In considering the Revision of this book, the present estimate will be made clearer by arranging the alterations made by the Committee in one column, and the further alterations which in the opinion of the writer are desirable, in a parallel column. In so doing changes are g...