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Our Authorized Bible Vindicated - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

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that tense of the Greek verb, called the aorist, in the<br />

same rigid, specific sense, in which the Revisers<br />

claim they had done.<br />

Undoubtedly, in a general way, the sacred<br />

writers understood the meaning of the aorist as<br />

distinguished from the perfect and imperfect; but<br />

they did not always use it so specifically as the<br />

Revisers claim. I continue from the same writer:<br />

“The self-imposed rule of the Revisers required<br />

them invariably to translate the aoristic forms by<br />

their closest English equivalents; but the vast<br />

number of cases in which they have forsaken their<br />

own rule shows that it could not be followed<br />

without in effect changing the meaning of the<br />

original; and we may add that to whatever extent<br />

that rule has been slavishly followed, to that extent<br />

the broad sense of the original has been marred.<br />

The Sacred writers wrote with a broad brush; the<br />

pen of the Revisers was a finely pointed stylus. The<br />

living pictures of the former furnish a grand<br />

panorama of providential history; the drawing of<br />

the latter is the cunning work of fine engravers,<br />

154

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