ISAIAH OF JERUSALEM IN THE AUTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION WITH AN INTRODUCTION, CORRECTIONS, AND NOTES MATTHEW ARNOLD FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883 3-29-38 INTRODUCTION. THE time approaches for the revised version of the Old Testament to make its appearance. Before it comes, let us say to ourselves and say to the revisers that the principal books of the Old Testament are things to be deeply enjoyed, and which have been deeply enjoyed hitherto. It is not enough to translate them accurately; they must be translated so as also to be deeply enjoyed, and to exercise the power of beauty and of sentiment which they have exercised upon us hitherto. Correct information by itself, as Butler profoundly says, is "really the least part" of education; just as religion, he adds, "does not consist in the knowledge and belief even of fundamental truths." No; education and religion, says Butler, consist mainly in our being brought by them "to a certain temper and behaviour." Now, if we are to be brought to a temper and behaviour, our affections must be engaged; and a force of beauty or of sentiment is requisite for engaging them. Correct rendering is very often conspicuously absent from our authorised version of the Old Testament; far more often and far more conspicuously, indeed, than from our authorised B |