RULES FOR THE REVISION

By far the most important new English version of the Bible to appear in the 350 years between 1611 and 1961, when the New English Bible was published, was the Revised Version (NT 1881, OT 1885, Apocrypha 1895), yet its significance here lies not so much in its achievement as in the insight it gives into the business of translation, its effects on opinions of the KJB and, to a minor extent, its role in generating the multitude of twentieth-century versions. This is not to belittle its achievements nor to gloss over its weaknesses, but to recognise that, even though a literary welcome was given to its work on some of the OT books, it has not become a significant work of English literature. In spite of – and even because of – the RV, the KJB's general reputation continued to grow.

As a revision, the RV has much in common with the KJB. If the decision to make the RV was taken tardily as against the almost indecent haste of the decision to make the KJB, if political and sectarian motives had their role in generating the KJB while the RV was the result of scholarly agitation, nevertheless each revision proceeded with exemplary care and thoroughness. Both were made by committees of the leading churchmen and scholars of the day; moreover, in terms of their scholarship and their own literary achievements outside of their translation, there is nothing to choose between the two groups (unless one were to argue for the preface to the KJB or for Lancelot Andrewes's sermons). The later revisers were as well qualified for the work as their predecessors.