BOOK NOTICES by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 10, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 40.

BOOK NOTICES

By Editor

"The 1911 Bible." Oxford University Press, American Branch, Henry Froude, 35 West 32d Street, New York.

This is the 1611 so-called King James Version, with its verse divisions, but with the text revised by American scholars. It is designed to retain all the essential features of the Authorized Version and embody all that are needed from revision. The Authorized Version has certainly held its own through the stress and storm of three centuries. It is felt that it has a strong hold upon the great mass of English Christians still, and all that is needed to correct a few passages which through changed usage of words have become obscure, and to help "a limited number of passages in which the revisers of 1611 missed the meaning." This is the aim of the revision of 1911. The revision, we are told, was placed in the hands of "a committee of thirty-four eminent Hebrew and Greek scholars, representing all of the great evangelical bodies and many foremost universities and schools of divinity." They neither revised nor translated, but corrected the text where it was deemed essential. For instance, "borrow" of Ex. 11:2 is changed to "ask," and similarly to 12:35; "bolled," however, is left in Ex. 9:31, but "in bloom" is put in the margin. "Earing" in Gen. 45:6 is changed to "sowing," but it is allowed to stand in Ex. 34:21. Why? "Countervail" of Esther 7:4 is changed to "recompense;" "prevent" of 1 Thess. 4:15 to "go before," but left in other places, as in Ps. 119:147. It would have helped many American readers to have substituted "wheat" or "grain" for "corn," in Matt. 12:1 and other places where the meaning is similar. It seems to us that the scrutiny of the scholars was neither thoro, uniform, nor consistent. They showed us what they ought to have done and failed to do it. In some cases the margin helps out. The paragraph division is indicated, while the verse division is retained. This is good. The new systems of reference may please many, and will be helpful in some things to all. As we examine it, the constant feeling is that the revisers, or "scrutinizers," did not appreciate their opportunity to serve the Bible student. The binding, typography, and paper are Oxford, a synonym for the best.

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"God's Two Books; or Plain Facts about Evolution, Geology, and the Bible." By George McCready Price, Professor of Geology and Physics, College of Medical Evangelists, Loma Linda, Cal. Price, cloth, $1.00. Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, D. C.

The author well says that it is "time the church of Christ got her bearings." She certainly has been drifting from her moorings of the Word, veering from the course marked out by her avowed chart; and nothing, perhaps, has had greater influence in her recent course than the modern teachings of geology and evolution. Many have accepted the teachings of Darwin, Huxley, Lamarck, and others along the same line, with little examination. The naturally skeptical mind of man makes him receptive to such teaching; and floundering theologians have been laboring to adjust their views, or the teachings of the Word, to evolution and geology. We commend to the searcher after truth Professor Price's little book. It is both destructive and constructive. It may demolish pet theories, but it puts something better in their place. Some of the chapter headings may be suggestive: Moral and Social Aspects of the Evolution Theory; Evidence of Archeology; Darwinism; Some Geological Definitions; The Successive Ages; Extinct Species; Facts about the Rocks; Creation as Taught in the Two Books. The book ought to be read by ministers, teachers, students, Christians.

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