1. Quotations from the New York Evening Post, 21 05 1881; the Chicago Tribune, 20 May 1881; and the Chicago Tribune, 23 May 1881. Sales figures are from the Chicago Tribune, 26 May 1881;Google Scholar and Schaff, Philip, A Companion to the Greek Testament and English Version (New York, 1883), pp. 404–405.Google Scholar

2. Although the Revised Version was the first major translation-by-committee since the King James Bible, the idea of Bible revision was not unknown to the public prior to 1881. Throughout the nineteenth century a variety of translations, mainly by individuals, appeared.Google Scholar See Hills, Margaret T., The English Bible in America: A Bibliography of Editions of the Bible and the New Testament Published in America 1777–1957 (New York, 1961).Google Scholar

3. On the making of the Revised Version, see Schaff, , A Companion, pp. 371–494.Google Scholar For a brief evaluation of the version from a text-critical standpoint, see Orlinsky, Harry M. and Bratcher, Robert G., A History of Bible Translation and the North American Contribution (Atlanta, Ga., 1991), pp. 45–47.Google Scholar From the standpoint of the history of American English, the best critique is Cmiel, Kenneth, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1990), pp. 206–233.Google Scholar

4. I shall make some reference to the British aspect of the Revised Version story, but it should be remembered that the longer trajectories of Bible revision in Britain and in America are not identical.Google Scholar

5. For a list of the committee members, see Schaff, , A Companion, pp. 575–577.Google Scholar

6. For the history of textual criticism of the New Testament, the standard treatment is Metzger, Bruce M., The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3d enlarged ed. (New York, 1992), esp. pp. 95–146.Google Scholar

7. Anglo-American Bible Revision: Its Necessity and Purpose. By the Members of the American Revision Committee, rev. ed. (Philadelphia, Pa., 1879), p. 14.Google Scholar

8. Schaff, , A Companion, p. 494.Google Scholar

9. On Schaff s ecumenical vision, particularly as it related to Bible revision, see Graham, Stephen R., Cosmos in the Chaos: Philip Schaff's Interpretation of Nineteenth-Century American Religion (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1995), pp. 168–175.Google Scholar See also Penzel, Klaus, “Church History and the Ecumenical Quest: A Study of the German Background and Thought of Philip Schaff” (Th.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1962);Google Scholar Nichols, James Hastings, Romanticism in American Theology: Nevin and Schaff at Mercersburg (Chicago, 1961);Google Scholar and Shriver, George H., Philip Schaff: Christian Scholar and Ecumenical Prophet (Macon, Ga., 1987)Google Scholar

10. Orlinsky and Bratcher, A History, pp. 70–73, 78; on Sawyer, see Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence, pp. 97–102.Google Scholar

11. Documentary History of the American Committee on Revision (New York, 1885), p. 66.Google Scholar

12. Schaff, , A Companion, pp. 380–381, 386.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 414.

14. Lightfoot, J. B., “On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament,” in Lightfoot, Richard Chenevix Trench, and C. J. Ellicott, The Revision of the English Version of the New Testament (New York, 1873), p. 161.Google Scholar

15. Talbot Chambers, “The Bible as a Classic,” in Anglo-American Bible Revision, p. 41.Google Scholar

16. Green, William Henry, “The Authorized Version and the Present Revision,” The Wycliffe Semi-Millennial Bible Celebration, proceedings of the convention of the Bible Societies of New Jersey (Trenton, N.J., 21–22 09 1880), pp. 92–93.Google Scholar

17. Riddle, Matthew Brown, The Story of the Revised New Testament, American Standard Edition (Philadelphia, Pa., 1908), p. 72.Google Scholar

18. Farrar, F. W., “Fidelity and Bias in Versions of the Bible,” Expositor 2d ser., 3 (1882): 283.Google Scholar

19. Quoted in the Chicago Tribune, 23 05 1881.Google Scholar On the Bible Society's ill-fated corrected edition of the King James Bible, see Dwight, Henry Otis, The Centennial History of the American Bible Society (New York, 1916), pp. 246–253.Google Scholar

20. Quoted in the Chicago Tribune, 23 05 1881.Google Scholar

21. Schaff, , A Companion, p. 417.Google Scholar

22. New York Times, 20 05 1881.Google Scholar

23. New York Times, 21 05 1881.Google Scholar

24. Ibid.

25. On the other hand, noted the Tribune, the fabulous initial sales of the Revised New Testament might be “nothing more than a passing phenomenon of this doubting, investigating age, which eagerly seizes upon everything that is new, and delights to find imperfections in all that has been regarded in the past as sacred” (22 05 1881).Google Scholar

26. Smith, G. Vance, Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament Affecting Theological Doctrine (London, 1881), pp. 13, 44. (Smith was a member of the British New Testament committee.) Another British reviewer, although fairly complimentary of the revision as a whole, expressed concern about what effect the new emphasis on “the evil one” might have on the popular theological imagination;Google Scholar see Cox, Samuel, “Doctrinal Effects of the Revised Version,” Expositor 2d ser., 3 (1882): 434–453.Google Scholar

27. For a scholarly appraisal of Burgon's critique, see Bruce, F. F., The English Bible: A History of Translations from the Earliest English Versions to the New English Bible, rev. ed. (London, 1970), pp. 148–152;Google Scholar see also Metzger, , The Text of the New Testament, pp. 135–136.Google Scholar Another negative appraisal of the Revised Version, although less vitriolic than Burgon's, was that of Samuel Hemphill, professor of biblical Greek at the University of Dublin. Hemphill's critique appeared as A History of the Revised Version of the New Testament (London, 1906).Google Scholar

28. Shriver, , Philip Schaff, p. 77;Google Scholar and Schaff, David S., The Life of Philip Schaff, In Part Autobiographical (New York, 1897), p. 386.Google Scholar

29. Quoted in Schaff, D., The Life of Philip Schaff, p. 386.Google Scholar

30. Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine 16 (07 1881): 94.Google Scholar

31. Beck, T. Romeyn, “Comparative Merits of the Authorized Version of the English New Testament and the Revised Version as Translations,” Reformed Quarterly Review 28 (10 1881): 539.Google Scholar

32. Buttz, H. A. (president of Drew Theological Seminary), “The Revised Version of the New Testament,” Methodist Quarterly Review 63 (10 1881): 716.Google Scholar

33. Christian Advocate 56 (26 05 1881).Google Scholar

34. Sunday School Times 23 (4 06 1881).Google Scholar

35. Huelster, A., “A Bird's Eye View of the Revised New Testament,” Evangelical Messenger 34 (5 07 1881).Google Scholar

36. Vincent, Marvin R., “Notes on the Revised New Testament,” Presbyterian Review 2 (10 1881): 685.Google Scholar

37. Christian Recorder 19 (2 06 1881).Google Scholar

38. Christum Intelligencer 52 (25 05 and 1 June 1881).Google Scholar

39. Washington Post, 30 05 1881. Little more than a month later, Garfield was assassinated.Google Scholar

40. Quoted in Ferenc Szasz, Morton, The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 1880–1930 (University, Ala., 1982), p. 20. Ironically, Talmage's position differed markedly from that of his denomination's periodical, the Christian Intelligencer.Google Scholar

41. New York Times, 21 11 1881. Less than two months earlier, Yale's theological faculty had adopted the Revised Version for use in its chapel services.Google Scholar

42. Quoted in Valentine, M., “The Revised English New Testament,” Lutheran Quarterly, n.s., 12 (01 1882): 59.Google Scholar

43. Evangelical Repository and Bible Teacher 58 (10 1881): 153.Google Scholar Much the same critique was offered by the Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter 19 (11 1881): 341–355.Google Scholar

44. Washington Post, 23 05 1881.Google Scholar

45. New York Times, 13 11 1881.Google Scholar

46. Pattison, T. Harwood, The History of the English Bible (London, 1894), pp. 163.Google Scholar

47. By the late 1890s, sales of the Revised Bible were estimated at just five to ten percent of the total Bible market; see Cmiel, , Democratic Eloquence, p. 219. See also Szasz, The Divided Mind, p. 20.Google Scholar

48. Hutchison, William R. has identified adaptation, immanentism, and progressivism as the central doctrines of modernism/liberalism;Google Scholar see Hutchison, , The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Durham, N.C., 1992), p. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. The social and economic side of the upheaval is chronicled in, for example, Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon, 1877–1919 (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

50. Hodge, A. A. and Warfield, B. B., “Inspiration,” Presbyterian Review 2 (1881): 225–260.Google Scholar Hodge, and Warfield's article inaugurated a three-year debate in the Presbyterian Review between supporters and opponents of higher criticism.Google Scholar For an overview of this series, see Loetscher, Lefferts A., The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1957), pp. 29–39.Google Scholar

51. Sandeen, Ernest R. has argued that the defensive tactic of Hodge and of Warfield was a theological innovation contradicting the Westminster Confession's assertion that God safeguarded the purity of the biblical text in all ages;Google Scholar see Sandeen, , The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago, 1970), pp. 128–129. Other scholars have viewed the Princeton position as standing in essential continuity with earlier Reformed views of the Bible;Google Scholar see, for example, Balmer, Randall H., “The Princetonians and Scripture: A Reconsideration,” Westminster Theological Journal 44 (1982): 352–365;Google Scholar and Noll, Mark A., ed., The Princeton Theology, 1812–1921: Scripture, Science, and Theological Method from Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Warfield (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1983), pp. 218–220.Google Scholar

52. On the differences between the Princeton theology and twentieth-century fundamentalism, see Noll, Mark A., “Introduction,” in The Princeton Defense of Plenary Verbal Inspiration (New York, 1988).Google Scholar

53. Warfield, “The Inerrancy of the Original Autographs,” reprinted (with helpful annotations) in Noll, The Princeton Theology, p. 271.Google Scholar

54. Warfield recommended, for example, that the American Bible Society adopt the Revised Version's successor, the American Standard Version (Presbyterian and Reformed Review 13 ]: 645–648). See below for more on the Bible Society and the ASV. It should be noted that misgivings about Bible revision were not unheard of among elder Princetonians. Warfield's mentor, Charles Hodge, vigorously opposed the Bible Society's attempt in the 1850s to correct the King James text. During the last decade of his life, Hodge was a member of the Revised Bible committee but reportedly never attended any of its meetings.Google Scholar See Hodge, Archibald Alexander, The Life of Charles Hodge D.D. LL.D. (New York, 1880), pp. 404–406;Google Scholar Robinson, C. S., “The Bible Society and the New Revision,” Scribner's Monthly (01 1881): 447–456; and Riddle, The Story of the Revised New Testament, p. 17.Google Scholar

55. The Fundamentals represented a transitional phase between late-nineteenth-century conservative orthodoxy and modern fundamentalism. For summaries of the issues, see Sandeen, , The Roots of Fundamentalism, pp. 188–207;Google Scholar Noll, , Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America (San Francisco, Calif, 1986), pp. 38–47;Google Scholar and Marsden, George M., Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (New York, 1980), pp. 118–123.Google Scholar

56. Mauro, , “A Personal Testimony,” in The Fundamentals: A Testimony to Truth (Chicago, 1910–1915), 4: 105.Google Scholar The Fundamentals have been reprinted in facsimile by Garland Publishing (New York, 1988), with an introduction by George Marsden.Google Scholar

57. Mauro, , “Life in the Word,” in The Fundamentals 5: 31–32.Google Scholar

58. Mauro, , Which Version? Authorized or Revised? (Boston, 1924), pp. 61–64, 103, 96–101.Google Scholar Mauro's volume received an enthusiastic endorsement from the conservative Presbyterian weekly, Herald and Presbyter 95 (16 07 1924).Google Scholar Mauro was a prolific producer of pamphlets and short books. His many works included a treatise against evolution, Evolution at the Bar (Boston, 1917).Google Scholar

59. Dabney, R. L., “The Revised Version of the New Testament,” Southern Presbyterian Review 32 (07 1881): 582.Google Scholar Mauro also criticized the Revised rendering of 2 Timothy 3:16; see Which Version?, pp. 93–94.Google Scholar

60. Wilkinson, Benjamin G., Our Authorized Bible Vindicated (Washington, D.C., 1930).Google Scholar

61. The American Standard Version was largely identical to the Revised Version, although it contained some readings preferred by the American revisers but vetoed by the British committee in 1881–1885.Google Scholar

62. Eighty-Eighth Annual Report of the American Bible Society (1904), pp. 5–6. Subsequent ABS Annual Reports carried advertisements for various styles of American Standard Bibles. Similar advertisements appeared around 1920 in a tract listing the “great religious denominations,” including Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans, that used the ASV in their Sunday schools.Google Scholar See “The Wonderful Story of How the Bible Came Down through the Ages” (New York, n.d.).Google Scholar

63. The RSV was the successor to the American Standard Version (ASV). For a good summary of the RSV controversy, see Roy, Ralph Lord, Apostles of Discord: A Study of Organized Bigotry and Disruption on the Fringes of Protestantism (Boston, 1953), pp. 203–227. I have undertaken a more thorough history of the RSV affair in my doctoral dissertation on Bible revision in America, 1881–1965.Google Scholar

64. For example, The Amplified Bible (1965), The New American Standard Bible (1971), The Living Bible (1971), and The New International Version (1978). In their preface to the New International Version, for example, the translators pledged their commitment to the Bible's “infallibility.”Google Scholar

65. Beck, T. Romeyn, “Comparative Merits,” p. 558. The New York Times (13 11 1881) expressed a similar fear: “[W]hat if each Church, historical and other, shall attempt to make its own Bible, in the race for the best revision? The old English Bible has been a bond of common thought for all English-speaking Christians. It is a critical question whether this tie of unity shall continue to exist.”Google Scholar