AUTHORIZED TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE AND OP THE BIBLE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:] Sra,—The publication of an authoriied text of Shakespeare, "a consummation devoutly to be wished," has been advocated by Sir Sidney Lee on the ground of the example of the Revisers of the Bible. This is unfortunately only true of their work upon the New Testament. As regards the Old Testament, the text of which stands in the most urgent need of revision, the preface to the Revision states that " the state of knowledge on the subject is not at present such as to justify any attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the authority of the Versions," and says that " the Revisers have thought it most prudent to adopt the Massoretic text as the basis of their work, and to depart from it only in exceptional cases." If it be a reproach to England to have an imperfect text of our greatest poet, it is surely a simple scandal to the world that the text of the Old Testament, dear alike to Jews and to Christians, should any longer be suffered to remain in a very parlous condition. Much has already been done, but it cannot be said that what has been attempted has been done upon really scientific lines. English scholars have been far too conservative, frequently adhering to the traditional text in passages obviously corrupt, and straining the grammar in order to force a meaning where no meaning was to be found. The Revised Version is, indeed, a worse offender than the Authorized Version, which was content to follow the text, even when faithfulness involved obscurity. German scholarship has erred in the opposite direction, and has frequently ventured to rewrite the text with the smallest possible regard to prob- ability. Thus the present condition of the Hebrew text is nothing short of disastrous. An excuse has been made by recent scholars that such detailed and laborious study as is needed for the reconstruction of the text is "wicked waste of time," but surely scholarship itself, let alone religion, ought to be ashamed to leave the teat of the Old Testament weltering in its blood and to pass by upon the other side. The great diffi- culty is concerned with the expenditure of time and money required to produce such a revised text, and these of us who are ready to afford the former are often not in a position to supply the latter. That the work can be done I am prepared to prove, and also that the results to be obtained can._ be shown to be inherently probable. Should any of your readers wish to take the matter further, I subjoin my address.—I am,
P.S.—The method of dealing with the Biblical text is identical with the method advocated by Professor Quilkr-Couch in dealing with the text of Shakespeare—a study of the form of the script.
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