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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2012
The Revised Version is recalled in the history of English language biblical versions because of the intense public debates over its potential to supplant the Authorized Version of 1611. These highly politicized contests over text and translation have continued through to the present day and have sidetracked attention from the deeper issues of identity and status associated with scholarship and national standing. Philip Schaff led a committed and ambitious group of American Protestant and Unitarian scholars in efforts to be credited as equal participants with the English Revisers in the massive project of the revision of the long-standing and much-loved English translation. The formation of the American Revised Version Committee within a year of the commencement of the work of revision by the two English Revision Companies ushered in an immense behind-the-scenes struggle over the requisite standing for decisions over the wording of the revised translation. Linguistics and text became the arena on which contests for recognition, national pride and scholarly achievement were fought. The choice of weapons of influence ranged from promotion of academic ability to rhetorical appeals to threats of commercial subversion. This paper explores the significance of American efforts to be involved credibly and influentially in the work that culminated in the Revised Version of 1881/1885 in England and (as a testament to the standing of American biblical scholarship and the failure of international cooperation) the distinct American Standard Version of 1901.
Alan Cadwallader is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies, Australian Catholic University, Canberra, Australia.
2. The following abbreviations are used for archive holdings: BL = British Library; CRO = Cheshire Record Office; CUL = Cambridge University Library; DDC = Durham Dean & Chapter Library; ACER = Auckland Castle Episcopal Records (Durham University Library, Palace Green); LPL = Lambeth Palace Library; MA = Methodist Archives (John Rylands Library); TCC = Trinity College Cambridge; WFA = Westcott Family Archives; WHA = Westcott House Archives; ABS = American Bible Society.Google Scholar
3. This number includes those who died or resigned in the course of the 15-year project.Google Scholar
4. The moves for revision had begun at an official level in the Church of England, in February of that year: Ellicott, C.J., ‘Preface’ to The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Oxford: The University Press, 1881), p. ix.Google Scholar
5. The New York Times headlined the news ‘Scriptural Revision’ (13 June 1870) and reiterated the terms of the report that Convocation had adopted. Numerous denominational papers across the United States did the same, just as they had noted the first intimations of the project, several months earlier. It should be recognized that America was not alone in the excitement of anticipation of the coming revision. The newspaper of the remote country town of Mt Gambier in southern Australia carried the news as well: Border Watch, 18 June 1870.Google Scholar
6. National Baptist, 23 June 1870, quoting the English Nonconformist newspaper.Google Scholar
7. Crowther, M.A., ‘Church Problems and Church Parties’, in G. Parsons (ed.), Religion in Victorian England. IV. Interpretations (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), p. 12.Google Scholar
8. The Chicago Advance, 18 August 1870.Google Scholar
9. Lord Shaftesbury led the charge on this front: Finlayson, G.B.A.M., The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 1801–1885 (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2004 [1981]), p. 517.Google Scholar
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11. It was already well known that, even though dubbed ‘the Authorized Version’, there was no Act of Parliament so securing it. By contrast, with an embargo placed upon export to America of copies of the King James Version during and after the War of Independence, the fledgling Congress of the United States had declared the ‘use of the Bible is so universal and its importance so great’ that a means of breaking the sanction was to be sought. Robert Aitken ultimately secured the formal rights (in 1782) to print the King James Bible in the United States, which unleashed a plethora of American printings. This would become critical at the business end of the new Revised Version when the delicacies of publication rights were again debated.Google Scholar
12. South Australian Register, 30 January 1869; South Australian Advertiser, 1 February 1869.Google Scholar
13. It should be noted here that the public discourse of ‘English-speaking people’ as a means of securing ties within and beyond the British Empire, predates William Gladstone's politicized use and is an important additional component to the influential note by Herrick, Francis, ‘Gladstone and the Concept of the ‘English-Speaking Peoples’, JBS 12 (1972), pp. 150–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Alford, H., The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, after the Authorised Version, Newly compared with the original Greek and revised (London: Strahan & Co, 1869). The work completed a venture in which he had been involved: The Gospel According to St John, after the Authorized Version, Newly Compared with the Original Greek and Revised by Five Clergymen (London: John W. Parker, 3rd edn, 1863).Google Scholar
15. Alford, New Testament, p. vi. Alford was to live long enough to see the establishment of the two Revised Version companies formed by the RV Committee set up by Convocation, and to serve briefly on the New Testament Company. He died in January 1871.Google Scholar
16. Schaff, P., ‘Prefatory Note’ to Members of the American Revision Committee, Anglo-American Bible Revision: Its Necessity and Purpose (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 2nd edn, 1879), p. ii. The phrase was quickly standardized as the American mode of referring to the venture: see Austin Allibone (Editor of Books for the American Sunday School Union), ‘Origins of this Volume’ in the same collection of essays (p. iv).Google Scholar
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22. Schaff, Companion, p. 482. The rhetoric was used in an attempt to gain both English recognition of American scholarship in the undertaking and support for the product once published.Google Scholar
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24. Reports covering arrival and departure and almost every step in between filled American newspapers. The newspapers also made constant reference to Stanley's work with the American Committee on the Revision: see, for three examples among many, The Tribune, 28 September 1878; The Observer, 3 October 1878; The Evangelical, 3 October 1878. For a partial insight into Stanley's view of the tour, see Prothero, R.E., Life and Letters of Dean Stanley (London: Nelson, 1909), pp. 525–546.Google Scholar
25. Schaff made more than half a dozen visits to England during the period of the revision project. See Pranger, G., Philip Schaff (1819–1893): Portrait of an Immigrant Theologian (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), p. 189.Google Scholar
26. National Baptist, 23 June 1870.Google Scholar
27. The Philadelphian Evening Telegraph, 30 June 1870, incorporating an editorial from the London Standard. The three or four in mind were not named and it is not quite clear whether the focus is the Episcopal Church or the sweep of Protestant churches.Google Scholar
28. The Guardian, 27 March 1872, a letter from ‘A Clergyman of the American Episcopal Church’.Google Scholar
29. CUL Ms Add 9739, Robert Scott papers Folder 3. ‘Resolution of the American Committee’.Google Scholar
30. Considerable tensions developed over the Union's claim for compensation for the Alabama's damage to the northern side. The matter was ultimately resolved by arbitration but it generated considerable public antagonism on both sides of the Atlantic. See Hall, M.Goldstein, E., ‘Writers, the Clergy, and the “Diplomatisation of Culture”: Sub-Structures of Anglo-American Diplomacy, 1820–1914’. in J. Fisher and A. Best (eds.), On the Fringes of Diplomacy: Influences on British Foreign Policy 1800–1945 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 128.Google Scholar
31. Gentzler, E., Translation and Identity in the Americas (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 31, 134.Google Scholar
32. Ellicott, ‘Preface’, p. xi.Google Scholar
33. Norton, D., A History of the Bible as Literature: From Antiquity to 1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), ch. 6.Google Scholar
34. Norton, A History of the Bible, p. 218.Google Scholar
35. Hall and Goldstein, ‘Diplomatisation of Culture’, pp. 127–54.Google Scholar
36. See Carey, God's Empire, pp. 6–14 and generally.Google Scholar
37. So Kaye, B., An Introduction to World Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 46–49.Google Scholar
38. The Guardian, 27 March 1872. The description is included in quotation marks in a letter from an Episcopalian clergyman criticizing a previous letter from a supporter of Dean Burgon's opposition to the revision. This suggests that there was a battle waging within the Episcopal Church over the revision, just as there was in England.Google Scholar
39. Ward, K., A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 55. Again however, the Revised Version is not factored into the overview.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40. The only study of the political dimensions of the Revised Version concentrates on its significance within the American context and does not examine the complex dimensions of the interactions between the English and American committees. See Thuesen, P.J., In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), ch. 2.Google Scholar
41. Schaff wrote to other members of the American Bible Revision Committee (ABRC) in 1883 promoting the publication of the Documentary History which he had compiled. He received varying responses. The Revd Dr Conant agreed that ‘Nothing else will show the true position taken by the American Committee, and their just grounds for that position’, Conant to Schaff, 22 October 1883; Professor Dwight however urged reticence: Dwight to Schaff, 17 August 1883 (ABS ABRC Correspondence Foreign and Domestic, 1883) and he became involved in the final editing. Six months later it was still being debated ‘whether or not and when the Documentary History is to be published’ – roneoed Agenda sent out by Schaff and George Day (a member of the Old Testament Company), 14 April 1884 (ABS ABRC Correspondence, Correspondence Foreign and Domestic, 1884). It was finally printed (rather than published) a year later.Google Scholar
42. Schaff, Companion, p. 398 and see infra.Google Scholar
43. Resolution 5 of the Joint Committee Report, 24 March, 1870, submitted 3 May of the same year.Google Scholar
44. He hoped to include a Roman Catholic representative as well, namely John Henry Newman, but Newman declined. See my ‘Star-Cross'd lovers: John Henry Newman and the Revision of the Bible’ AEJT forthcoming.Google Scholar
45. See my ‘The Politics of Translation of the Revised Version: Evidence from the Newly Discovered Notebooks of Brooke Foss Westcott’, JTS 58 (2007), pp. 415–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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47. House of Commons debate, 14 June 1870, Hansard, vol. 202, p. 100. Matthew Arnold had already dismissed Buxton (the Liberal member for Wisley) as having ‘a turn for swimming with the stream’, by which, presumably, he meant, a penchant for pursuing the latest radical cause: Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism (London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1869), p. xviii.Google Scholar
48. Hansard, vol. 202, pp. 112–17.Google Scholar
49. Gladstone's personal copy (held at the William Gladstone Library in Hawarden) of Edmund Beckett's pamphlet ‘Should the Revised New Testament Be Authorized?’ has a pronounced, capitalized ‘No!’ penciled onto the front page. This tallies with other notices of his ‘hectoring’ opposition to the revision, as one of the revisers, Charles Vaughan noted: C.J. Vaughan to Alex Macmillan (the publisher) in BL Add Ms 55113, f. 78.Google Scholar
50. Diary entry, 14 June 1870 (H.C.G. Matthew, The Gladstone Diaries Vol. VII [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990]).Google Scholar
51. Quinault, R., ‘Gladstone and Parliamentary Reform’, in D. Bebbington and R. Swift (eds.), Gladstone Centenary Essays (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), p. 83.Google Scholar
52. This was the way Buxton understood it in his parliamentary speech when he advocated tapping into the learning of Jewish scholars on finer points of Hebrew: Hansard, vol. 202, p. 101.Google Scholar
53. This executed a theological commitment as much as a political strategy; see Schwarz, H., Theology in a Global Context: The Last Two Hundred Years (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar
54. Stanley to Schaff, 30 May 1871 (Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision [New York, 1885], p. 45).Google Scholar
55. Schaff to Dr Joseph Angus, 18 August 1870 (Documentary History, p. 31).Google Scholar
56. Stanley to Schaff, 30 May 1871 (Documentary History, p. 46).Google Scholar
57. Humphry, W.G., A Word on the Revised Version of the New Testament (London: Christian Knowledge Society, 1881), p. 34.Google Scholar
58. Stanley had feared that the conference was going to be directed towards reinforcing reactions against Bishop Colenso of Natal, thus inciting what he called ‘party differences’; it was a fear that was realized: Prothero, Stanley, pp. 376–78.Google Scholar
59. Hopkins to Stanley, 9 November 1867 (Prothero, Stanley, pp. 379, 381).Google Scholar
60. Stanley to Schaff, 13 January 1871. This, however, was the formal contact; Stanley had already encouraged the Baptist member of the English New Testament Company of revisers, Dr Joseph Angus, to utilize his many American contacts to the advantage of the work of Revision six months earlier. Angus was then to be in the United States for a meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, with which Schaff was associated.Google Scholar
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62. Letter Westcott to Lightfoot, 15 May 1869 (DDC).Google Scholar
63. Pragmatics also played a part – Angus was a frequent visitor to the United States for gatherings of the Evangelical Alliance.Google Scholar
64. Angus to Schaff, 14 December 1871 noted the delay caused (ABS Foreign Correspondence 1870–1881, Letter 6).Google Scholar
65. The letter is dated 7 August 1871, reprinted as Appendix XIV in Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1871), pp. 615–16 (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter 148a).Google Scholar
66. Edward White Benson, long-time friend of Westcott and Lightfoot, recorded in his diary (8 June 1882) about Wilberforce's ‘desire to have everything his own way’ (TCM Ms 147, Cornwall Record Office, The Benson Diaries). The assessment was not unique: see Bishop Ellicott to Lightfoot, 21 February, 1871 (DCC). Wilberforce had been working behind the scenes to engineer a narrower membership of the Companies, as well as a curtailment of the brief for revision. See Wilberforce, R.G., Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce (London: John Murray, 1882), III, pp. 346–350). He early removed himself from chairing the New Testament Company, citing episcopal pressures. His death in 1873 precluded further concerns at his actions.Google Scholar
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71. The Second Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1872), p. 198. Catholics had been carefully excluded from the beginning of the American venture by an accent on the use of the Authorized Version: Qualification 3 formulated by the Committee on New Members and adopted by the American Bible Revision Committee on 30 November 1872 (ABRC Minute Book, ABS Archives Box RG#86 0-3-6). Stanley had tried to persuade Schaff otherwise: Stanley to Schaff, 30 May 1871 (Documentary History, p. 46).Google Scholar
72. Ellicott to Schaff, 22 April 1872 (Documentary History, p. 59).Google Scholar
73. Abbot to Schaff, 14 March 1872 (ABS ABRC Correspondence – Philip Schaff Domestic 1871–81, Folder A); Abbot to Joseph Barber Lightfoot, 5 January 1872 (DDC Lightfoot Papers).Google Scholar
74. ABRC Minute Book, 4 October 1872 (ABS Committee and Sub-committee Records 1870–1887).Google Scholar
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76. Documentary History, p. 70.Google Scholar
77. Stanley to Schaff, 8 April 1871 (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter No. 112).Google Scholar
78. Ellicott to Schaff, 23 October 1871, conveying a resolution of the New Testament Company (ABS Foreign Correspondence Letter No. 42).Google Scholar
79. Stanley to Schaff, 13 January 1871 (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter No. 111).Google Scholar
80. See my ‘Who Can Tamper with the Text? The Battles for Authority to Revise the KJV’, forthcoming.Google Scholar
81. Grant, F.C., Translating the Bible (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1961), p. 91. Schaff estimated the value of the University Presses’ support in American money as $100,000: Schaff, Companion, p. 402.Google Scholar
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83. ‘University Press, Correspondence relating to the Revised Version’, CUL Pr.B.4 ff. 1-18. This was in spite of an earlier resolution of the Companies themselves that they not alienate the copyright: ‘Minutes and Related Papers of the Company for Revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament’, 13 July 1870, CUL Ms Add 6935, f. 10.Google Scholar
84. Hall and Goldstein, ‘Diplomatisation of Culture’, p. 131.Google Scholar
85. ABRC Minute Book, 7 December 1871 (my emphasis).Google Scholar
86. Documentary History, pp. 32–33, 54–55.Google Scholar
87. ABRC Minute Book, 29 May 1873.Google Scholar
88. ABRC Minute Book, 31 May 1873.Google Scholar
89. The phrase comes from a later letter of Schaff to Dr James Cartmell, President of the Syndics of the Cambridge Press and clearly shows his frustration: Schaff to Cartmell, 5 May 1876 (ABS RG#86 0-3-6 Reports, Papers, Correspondence, Letter books).Google Scholar
90. A summary of his addresses to the two Companies was printed for private circulation: Robert Scott papers, CUL Ms. Add. 9739, folder 3. It is also found in the Documentary History, pp. 89–93.Google Scholar
91. Andrew Taylor was the financial secretary for the American Bible Revision Committee whose sole role was to garner contributions for the work (ABS Taylor Schaff Correspondence).Google Scholar
92. Both Companies agreed to a substantial modification of an earlier agreement, by looking to the appointment of certain members of each Company to serve on its parallel. The New Testament Company added a number of conditions, the most decisive being ‘the express consent of the two University Presses’ (Documentary History, p. 94).Google Scholar
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96. This seems to have been recognized in some quarters in England. A resolution of the Assembly of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, carried on 4 October 1881 offered ‘hearty thanks to the scholars of England and America’ (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter No. 39, and attachment).Google Scholar
97. This was precisely the point made by J.W. Henley, the member for Oxfordshire, in the House of Commons debate in June 1870: Hansard, Vol. 202, p. 118.Google Scholar
98. Angus to Schaff, 8 February 1875 (ABS Foreign Correspondence, Letter No. 13). A similar acknowledgement from members of the American Companies was made at the conclusion of the privately distributed Historical Account of the Work of the American Committee of Revision (New York: Scribner, 1885), p. 56.Google Scholar
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101. See for last minute concerns that mistakes be corrected, Abbot to Schaff, 6 February 1876 (ABS Schaff Domestic Correspondence, 1871–1881, folder A).Google Scholar
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103. Strictly, work on the Apocrypha remained to be done but again the simmering conflict interfered with a cooperative venture. The revision of the Apocrypha (which was included in the first edition of the Authorized Version), was broached in November 1877, with the initial intent that, for the sake of ‘uniformity of character … the whole body of the Revisers’ was to be involved ‘as far as practicable’ (CUL Ms Add 9739, Scott papers, folder 3). In the end, this was not adopted as a resolution (20 February 1878), and despite American enquiries, ‘no cooperation is contemplated’ (Troutbeck to Schaff, 20 August 1881; ABS Papers and Correspondence).Google Scholar
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107. Schaff died in 1893.Google Scholar
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