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The revision of the Canonical Scriptures projected (1847–1851) by the American Bible Society was a ambitious enterprise, which until lately has hardly been heard of in England1. A Committee of seven, on which we recognize the honoured name of Edward Robinson, engaging as their collator James W. McLane, a Presbyterian minister in the State of New York, superintended his comparison of a standard American Bible with recent copies published in London, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, as also with the book of 1611. Where the four modern British volumes proved uniform, the new revision was conformed to them, or, in matters of punctuation, to any three united. Other rules drawn up for McLane’s guidance shew laudable care on the part of the Committee, who felt and confessed that some restraint (even though a light one) was peculiarly needed by their citizens, since “the exposure to variations is naturally greater, wherever the printing of the Bible is at the option of every one who chooses to undertake it, without restriction and without supervision; as in this country since the Revolution” (Report, p. 8). To this task the good men devoted themselves for three years and a half, and finally presented their Report and revision to the Board of Managers which had appointed them. Ibi omnis effusus labor: adopted at first, the work was rejected the very next year (1852) by a majority of the same body, “on the ground of alleged want of constitutional authority, and popular dissatisfaction with a number of the changes made2.” Some small fruits, however, of their faithful toil remain in the editions of the Bible published by the American Bible Society since 1860, to which reference is frequently made in the course of this Introduction and its Appendices3. It is not easy to persuade ourselves that very much has been lost by the failure of the praiseworthy effort just described. The plan of operation was not sufficiently thorough to produce any considerable results. Between the five recent Bibles that were collated the differences would be slight and superficial, but when the standard of 1611 came to be taken into account, it is very credible that the recorded variations, solely in the text and punctuation, amounted to 24,000 (Report, p. 31). No attempt seems to have been made to bridge over the wide gulph between the first issues of the Authorized Version and those of modern times by the use of such intermediate editions as have been examined in the present Section; nor does the general tone of their Report encourage the belief that the previous studies of the revisers had lain in that direction. Hence followed of necessity, or at any rate in practice, so complete a postponement of Bibles of the seventeenth century to those of the nineteenth, that wheresoever the latter agreed together, their very worst faults, whether relating to the text or to the italic type (and more especially to the italics), were almost sure to escape detection, and never did come to the knowledge of the Committee, save by some happy accident.

It remains to state that the model or standard copy by which the present work has been set up at the press is the Cambridge 8vo. edition, small pica (with marginal references) 1858. This Paragraph Bible, therefore, agrees with the Cambridge method of spelling certain words enumerated in Section v. (p. xlviii.), rather than with the London or Oxford fashion. Our standard may be pronounced to be accurately printed, inasmuch as close and repeated examination has enabled us to note only the following errata in the text or margin.

1 Chr. iv. 24 (margin of 1762) Zoar for Zohar; 2 Chr. i. 4 Kiriath; Ezra i. 7 his god (presumably by accident, yet it looks true: compare in Hebrew 2 Kin. xix. 37; Dan. i. 2); Esther i. 7 gave them; Job xv. 35 mischiof; xxi. 26 worm; Ps. xxxi. 7 adversity; xlv. 11 thy lord; Hos. ii. 1 Ru-hamah; Jonah i. 4 was †like (see Appendix C); Luke iv. 7 marg. fall down (so Camb. nonpareil, 1857).

Since this Bible of 1858 does not contain the Apocrypha, a Cambridge 4to. 1863 has been adopted for the model of that portion of our work. Besides correcting the mistakes of Blayney and his successors in the passages indicated in pp. xxi., xxii.,