Introduction.

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The help afforded to an attentive reader of Holy Scripture by the simple plan of arranging its unbroken text in paragraphs accommodated to the sense, is by this time too well appreciated to require, for adopting that method, either apology or enlarged explanation. By discarding the over-numerous and sometimes arbitrary breaks at the end of each verse in our ordinary Bibles; by banishing the numerals which indicate the chapters and verses into the margin, where they may be used for the purpose of reference; by broadly distinguishing the poetical books or portions of books from those written in prose; by marking clearly to the eye the passages of the Old Testament which are quoted in the New; as much aid will probably have been rendered towards the right understanding of the Inspired Volume as can be hoped for from the employment of devices merely typographical.

But it is not mainly as a Paragraph Bible that the interest of theological students is sought in behalf of the present work, to the preparation of which upwards of seven laborious years have been willingly devoted. The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press have considered that its special and exceptional form presents a favourable opportunity for supplying to scholars and divines their much-felt want of a critical edition of the Authorized Version of the Holy Bible, such as would have been executed long ago, had this Version been nothing more than the greatest and best known of English Classics. And this design has been rendered all the more necessary by the fact that a formal revision of the Translation itself is now in progress, having been undertaken about three years ago under the auspices of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. If a judgment may be formed from previous experience in like cases, the revised and unrevised Versions, when the former shall be at length completed, are destined to run together a race of generous and friendly rivalry for the space of at least one generation, before the elder of the two shall be superseded in the affections of not a few devout persons, who, in so grave a matter as the daily use of Holy Scripture, shall prove slow to adopt changes which yet they will not doubt to be made, on the whole, for the better. With such a struggle before it, it is only right that the Authorized or King James’s Bible should be represented, so far as may be, in the precise shape that it would have assumed, if its venerable Translators had shewn themselves more exempt than they were from the failings incident to human infirmity; or if the same severe accuracy, which is now demanded in carrying so important a volume through the press, had been deemed requisite or was at all usual in their age. The purpose of this Introduction is to discuss, within as moderate a compass as the subject will permit, the principles which have been adopted in editing the following pages, the reasons whereon they are grounded, and the difficulties which have been encountered in the prosecution of an arduous but by no means a wearisome task. For the reader’s convenience it will be divided into seven Sections, the chief contents of which are here subjoined.

Section I. On the history of the text of the Authorized Version, from a.d. 1611 down to the present time.

Section II. On its marginal notes; and on the original texts, both Greek and Hebrew, employed by the Translators.

Section III. On the use of the Italic type by the Translators, and on the extension of their principles by subsequent editors.

Section IV. On the system of punctuation adopted in 1611, and modified in more recent Bibles.

Section V. On the orthography, grammatical peculiarities, and capital letters of the original, as compared with modern editions.

Section VI. On the references to parallel texts of Scripture which are set in the margin.

Section VII. Miscellaneous observations relating to the present edition, and general Conclusion.

To the Introduction is annexed, besides several other Appendices, a full Catalogue of the places in which the text of modern Bibles differs from that of the standard of 1611, with the dates at which the variations were severally adopted, so far as by diligent care they have been ascertained.