The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

is a late 19th-century British revision of the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

. It was the first and remains the only officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Version in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

. 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 The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

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 Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

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 John William Burgon (21 August 18134 August 1888) was an English Anglican divine who became the Dean of Chichester Cathedral in 1876. He was known during his lifetime for his poetry and his defence of the historicity and Mosaic authorship of Gen ...

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 Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

text that was used to translate the New Testament was believed by most to be of higher reliability than the ''

Textus Receptus ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denomi ...

''. The readings used were compiled from a different text of the Greek Testament by Edwin Palmer. 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 Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

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,

Watchman Nee Watchman Nee, Ni Tuosheng, or Nee T'o-sheng (; November 4, 1903 – May 30, 1972), was a Chinese church leader and Christian teacher who worked in China during the 20th century. His evangelism was influenced by the Plymouth Brethren. In 1922, ...

H.L. Ellison Henry Leopold Ellison (July 10, 1903 Krakow, Poland – July 10, 1983 Dawlish), usually cited as H. L. Ellison, was a biblical scholar, professor, missionary, speaker, and author in the 1900s. His parents were Leopold Zeckhausen and Sara Jane ...

F.F. Bruce Frederick Fyvie Bruce (12 October 1910 – 11 September 1990), usually cited as F. F. Bruce, was a Scottish biblical scholar who supported the historical reliability of the New Testament. His first book, ''New Testament Documents: Are They ...

, and

Clarence Larkin Clarence Larkin (1850–1924) was an American Baptist pastor, Bible teacher and author whose writings on Dispensationalism had a great impact on conservative Protestant visual culture in the 20th century. His intricate and influential charts provi ...

, in their works. Other enhancements introduced in the RV include arrangement of the text into paragraphs, formatting Old Testament

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

as indented poetic lines instead of

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

, 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 The American Standard Version (ASV), officially Revised Version, Standard American Edition, is a Bible translation into English that was completed in 1901 with the publication of the revision of the Old Testament. The revised New Testament had b ...

) 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 language, 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 (l ...

. 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 Britain ...

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 Ameri ...

. 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 A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

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