The Revised Version (1881-1885)

The Revised Version (or English Revised Version) of the Bible is a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of 1611. It was the first and remains the only officially authorized and recognized revision of the King James Bible. The work was entrusted to over 50 scholars from various denominations in Britain.

American scholars were invited to cooperate, by correspondence. The New Testament was published in 1881, the Old Testament in 1885. The best known of the translation committee members were Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort; their fiercest critic of that period was John William Burgon.

The stated aim of the RV’s translators was “to adapt King James’ version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom and vocabulary,” and “to adapt it to the present standard of Biblical scholarship.” Further, it was to be “the best version possible in the nineteenth century, as King James’ version was the best which could be made in the seventeenth century.”

To those ends, the Greek text used to translate the New Testament was believed by some to be of higher reliability than the Textus Receptus used for the KJV. The readings used were compiled from a different text of the Greek Testament by Edwin Palmer.

While the text of the translation itself is widely regarded as excessively literal and flat, the Revised Version is significant in the history of English Bible translation for many reasons

At the time of the RV’s publication, the nearly 300-year old King James Version was still the only viable English Bible in Victorian England. The RV, therefore, is regarded as the forerunner of the entire modern translation tradition. And it was considered a bit more accurate than the King James Version in a number of verses.

4048.RV1881.docx