The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version. It was the first and remains the only officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Version in Great Britain. The work was entrusted to over 50 scholars from various denominations in Great Britain. American scholars were invited to co-operate, by correspondence.Revised Version - CAMBRIDGE - At the University Press - London: Cambridge University Press, 200 Euston Road, N.W., Synopsis Its New Testament was published in 1881, its

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

in 1885, and its Apocrypha in 1894. The best known of the translation committee members were

Brooke Foss Westcott Brooke Foss Westcott (12 January 1825 – 27 July 1901) was an English bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing ''The New Testament in the Orig ...

and

Fenton John Anthony Hort Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892), known as F. J. A. Hort, was an Irish-born theologian and editor, with Brooke Foss Westcott of a critical edition of ''The New Testament in the Original Greek''. Life He was born on 23 April 182 ...

; their fiercest critics of that period were John William Burgon and

George Saintsbury George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, FBA (23 October 1845 – 28 January 1933), was an English critic, literary historian, editor, teacher, and wine connoisseur. He is regarded as a highly influential critic of the late 19th and early 20th centu ...

Features

The New Testament revision company was commissioned in 1870 by the convocation of Canterbury. Their stated aim was "to adapt King James' version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom and vocabulary," and "to adapt it to the present standard of Biblical scholarship." To those ends, the Greek text that was used to translate the New Testament was believed by most to be of higher reliability than the '' Textus Receptus''. The readings used were compiled from a different text of the Greek Testament by

Edwin Palmer Edwin Palmer (18 July 1824 – 17 October 1895) was an English churchman and academic, Corpus Professor of Latin at Oxford from 1870 to 1878 and archdeacon of Oxford from 1878 to his death. Life His father William Jocelyn Palmer was rector of Mi ...

. While the text of the translation itself is widely regarded as excessively literal and flat, the Revised Version is significant in the history of English Bible translation for many reasons. At the time of the RV's publication, the nearly 300-year-old King James Version was the main Protestant English Bible in Victorian England. The RV, therefore, is regarded as the forerunner of the entire modern translation tradition. It was also considered more accurate than the King James Version in a number of verses.

New version

The revisers were charged with introducing alterations only if they were deemed necessary to be more accurate and faithful to the Original Greek and Hebrew texts. In the New Testament alone more than 30,000 changes were made, over 5,000 on the basis of what were considered better Greek manuscripts. The work was begun in 1879, with the entire work completed in 1885. (The RV Apocrypha came out in 1895.) The 1885 Revised Version was the first post-King James Version modern English Bible to gain popular acceptance. It was used and quoted favorably by ministers, authors, and theologians in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s, such as Andrew Murray,

T. Austin-Sparks Theodore Austin-Sparks (1888–1971), often known as "Mr. Sparks" or "TAS", was a British Christian evangelist and author. Early life After his birth in London in 1888, Theodore was sent at a young age to live in Scotland with his father's relati ...

, Watchman Nee, H.L. Ellison, F.F. Bruce, and Clarence Larkin, in their works. Other enhancements introduced in the RV include arrangement of the text into paragraphs, formatting Old Testament poetry as indented poetic lines instead of prose, and the inclusion of marginal notes to alert the reader to variations in wording in ancient manuscripts. The Apocrypha in the Revised Version became the first printed edition in English to offer the complete text of Second Esdras, inasmuch as damage to one 9th-century manuscript had caused 70 verses to be omitted from previous editions and printed versions, including the King James Version. In the United States, the Revised Version was adapted and revised as the "Revised Version, Standard American Edition" (the American Standard Version) in 1901. The American Standard Version is largely identical to the 1885 Revised Version, with minor variations in wording considered to be slightly more accurate. One noticeable difference is the much more frequent use of the form "

Jehovah Jehovah () is a Latinization of the Hebrew , one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament. The Tetragrammaton is considered one of the seven names of God in Judais ...

" in the Old Testament of the American Standard Version, rather than "the " that is used more so in the 1885 Revised Version, to represent the Divine Name, the

Tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are '' yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', an ...

. The 1885 Revised Version and the 1901 American Revision are among the Bible versions authorized for use in services of the Episcopal Church and also of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

Later history

The American Standard Version was the basis for many revisions in the first hundred years after it was released. The RV itself has never been the basis for any revision except for the American Standard Version and the Apocrypha in the

Revised Standard Version The Revised Standard Version (RSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. This translation itself is a revision of the Amer ...

. As the Revised Version is out of copyright worldwide, it is widely available online and in digital and e-reader formats although it is significantly less popular than the KJV or the ASV in this manner. However, interest in the 1885 Revised Version has grown in recent years due to the internet, for general research and reference, and study of history of English Bible translations. It is sparsely available in printed published form today, with only

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambr ...

publishing it in the form of a KJV/RV interlinear.

Sources

*Marlowe, Michael D
"English Revised Version (1881-1895)"
Retrieved March 22, 2004. *Hall, Isaac H. (ed.

Retrieved March 22, 2004. * Palmer, Edwin
ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. The Greek Testament
with the Readings Adopted by the Revisers of the Authorised Version. London: Simon Wallenberg Press, 2007. *Ryken, Leland (2002). ''The Word of God in English''. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. * Burgon, John William (1883). ''The Revision Revised''. * Bible: Apocrypha, Revised Version. ''The Apocrypha, Translated out of the Greek and Latin Tongues, Being the Version Set forth A.D. 1611 Compared with the Most Ancient Authorities and Revised A.D. 1894, sPrinted for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge''. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1896. ix, 175 p.

Notes

External links

The text of the RV onlineThe New Testament, in the revised version of 1881, with fuller references (1910)
– Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press.
Editors: Moulton, W. F. (William Fiddian), 1835-1898; Moulton, James Hope, 1863-1917; Greenup, A. W. (Albert William), 1866-1952; Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose, 1813-1891.
The interlinear Bible : the Authorised version and the Revised version ; together with the marginal notes of both versions and central references (1907)
– Cambridge University Press * {{Authority control 1881 non-fiction books 1885 non-fiction books 1894 non-fiction books 19th-century Christian texts Bible translations into English