NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT Being the Otium Norvicense (Pars Tertia)
Cambridge University Press, 1899. Revised Edition. Hardcover. Extensively annotated copy with numerous inlaid pages transcribing personal letters to Field, reviews publications engaging with Field, and in-person remarks made by Field. From the personal library of one 'W. M. Butcher' whom we presume to be a student or colleague of Dr. Field, with all transcriptions written in his hand with fountain pen along with numerous marginal annotations in the same pen as well as pencil. Briefly put, this copy contains a wealth of responses and engagements from members of the Revision Committee to one a scholar who had an outsize impact on the work and reception of the Revised Version. Dr. Field was one of the most highly regarded scholars in the Church of England, making great contributions in the fields of philology, Biblical Studies, and Patristics. Known as 'Field's Hexapla', his 'Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt' -- a critical reconstruction of Origen's sixfold edition of the Old Testament with Commentary -- was one of the greatest works of Biblical scholarship of the 19th century. The ambitious project of revising the Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible was perhaps the greatest publishing and literary event of the 19th century, causing public uproar and scholarly excitation while leading to over 3 million new Bibles sold by Oxford and Cambridge in the first year of completion in 1885. The project was undertaken mainly to account for new manuscript discoveries and advances in textual and philological studies by scholars such as Field. Although his deafness prevented his participation in the official meetings in the Jerusalem Chamber, Field's opinions were highly regarded and coveted. Transcribed on the RPEP, Prof. S. R. Driver (of the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon), writes to Rev. J. H. Burn: 'I never saw Dr. Field at the meetings of the Revision Company; + I believe that (Being very deaf) he never attended. But he always sent very carefully prepared suggestions for ammended renderings, which were read out by the Secretary, + usually formed the starting point of the discussion which followed. Dr. Field in spite of his absence from its meetings, was thus a most valuable member of the Revission Comp.; his renderings were scholarly + accurate; _ without some slight modification of form, were often those which were finally accepted by the Comp. Dr. Field's scholarhip, both in Hebrew and Syriac, was sound + exact; + his edition of the Hexapla, in particular, has the reputation of being a masterpiece of painstaking and successful work.' The basis of the present book was that very correspondence first sent to the revision committee. First published in 1881 upon the release of the Revised Version of the New Testament, Field's *Notes on the Translation of the New Testament* was neither a repudiation nor vindication, but a continuation of the project of composing a new translation not just for the scholarly titilation of academics, but one worthy to be 'appointed to be read in churches.' This second edition was made using a manuscript left nearly complete upon Field's death in 1885, using also the annotations made in his own copy of the first edition. W. M. Butcher records no less than 19 exerpts such as this from notable scholar-churchmen, mostly members of the Revision Committee, including such legendary names at Robert Scott (of Liddell & Scott's Greek Lexicon); Bishop J. J. S. Perowne, Bishop Charles Ellicott; S. A. Driver, Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench, and William Robertson Smith, who calls Field, 'unquestionably the most learned man in the O.T. Company of Revisers' in a letter to the Bishop of Edinburgh. Butcher references a 'note added by Dr. Field in Dr. Greenhill's copy.' We presume this is William Alexander Greenhill, who composed Field's entry in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Whether Butcher transcribed all of the manuscript material here from Greenhill's copy, or had access to Field's papers at Trinity College, Cambridge, we do not know. xvii, [1], 267pp. 8vo, brown cloth, gilt spine lettering deckled edges; cloth moderately worn with some light stains, spine leaning; a few spots of yellow highlighter by a later owner; FPEPE with bookeller note and price of £10, subsequent pencil note recording purchase from Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia) in 1993. VERY GOOD. Item #515106
Price: $650.00