since the
Revision was completed. If this be a correct, as it is certainly a
charitable, estimate of the circumstances under which ignorance has been
imputed to us in respect of several matters relating to the Greek on
which we were engaged, let us now leave our critics, and deal with these
reasonable questions. First, what was the general knowledge, on the part
of the Revisers, of the character and peculiarities of New Testament
Greek? Secondly, what is the amount of the knowledge relative to New
Testament Greek that has been acquired since the publication of the
revision? and thirdly, to what extent does this recently acquired
knowledge affect the correctness and fidelity of the renderings that have
been adopted by the Revisers? If these three questions are plainly
answered we shall have dealt fully and fairly with the doubts that have
been expressed or implied as to the correctness of the revision.

First, then, as to the general knowledge which the revisers had of the
character and peculiarities of the Greek of the New Testament.

This question could not perhaps be more fairly and correctly dealt with
than by Bishop Westcott in the opening words of his chapter on Exactness
in Grammatical Detail, in the valuable work to which I have already
referred. What he states probably expresses very exactly the general
view taken by the great majority, if not by all, of the Revisers in
regard of the Greek of the New Testament. What the Bishop says of the
language is this: "that it is marked by unique characteristics. It is
separated very clearly, both in general vocabulary and in construction,
from the language of the LXX, the Greek Version of the Old Testament,
which was its preparation, and from the Greek of the Fathers which was
its development {106}."

If we accept this as a correct statement of the general knowledge of the
Revisers as to the language of the Greek Testament, we naturally ask
further, on what did they rely for the correct interpretation of it. The
answer can readily be given, and it is this: Besides their general
knowledge of Greek which, in the case of the large majority, was very
great, their knowledge of New Testament Greek was distinctly influenced
by the grammatical views of Professor Winer, of whose valuable grammar of
the Greek Testament one of our Company, as I have mentioned in my first
Address, had been a well-known and successful translator. Though his
name was not very frequently broug