THE

CHRISTIAN REFORMER.

No. CXLVI.]

FEBRUARY, 1857.

[VOL. XIII.

ON A REVISED ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.

It would not be easy to exaggerate the importance of a Revision of the Authorized Translation of the Scriptures, if conducted by men duly impressed with the sacredness of the task which they undertook, and possessed of learning and impartiality sufficient for the faithful accomplishment of it. It was in the spirit of no vain or misplaced confidence that the Reformers of the sixteenth century relied, in their contest with the ignorance and superstition of their time, on the Scriptures as the mightiest weapon in the Christian warfare. They recognized in these the genuine records of divine revelation, and were conscious that from them they drew all the knowledge of God and his providence, of man and his destiny, in which they differed from the heathen world. It was therefore in obedience to the demands of piety as well as of prudence, that they sought to place them in a correct and intelligible form before the minds of those to whom they preached the gospel. Prudence and consistency required that the preachers of the gospel should place clearly and intelligibly before the people those Scriptures in which alone that gospel is recorded; while piety imperatively demanded that this holiest and most precious gift of God to men should be freed, to the utmost possible degree, from every admixture of human error or defect arising out of human infirmity. Nor did the practical results of this plan of religious teaching fail to justify their most sanguine anticipations of success; for while with indefatigable zeal and diligence they produced translation after translation of the sacred volume, they gained for the Protestant communion a constantly increasing multitude of sincere and zealous, because free and intelligent, disciples of their great Master.

Differing widely in character and attainments, so widely, indeed, as in some cases to be incapable of any hearty co-operation in preaching that gospel which they all so highly prized,they were always united in deepest and warmest sympathy in the opinion that the Scriptures should be put forward continually as the divinely-appointed instrument of the individual and social regeneration of the world. It was morally impossible that the stern and uncompromising spirit of Luther should justly appreciate the gentle and cautious fidelity with which Erasmus devoted

his powers to the same cause; or that the Augustinian monk, overflowing with the gloomy theology of the patron of his order, should be able to tolerate the more moderate and rational doctrine of the reformer of Zurich. But from whatever centre we contemplate the spirit of reform going forth, from Wittenberg or Basle, Geneva or Zurich, one doctrine at least issues in common from them all, and bears its practical fruit everywhere-that the Bible is to be put forward, correctly and intelligibly, as the divine source of knowledge and piety, of faith, hope and righteousness, to the church of Christ. Hence were the first great leaders of the Protestant cause in Europe distinguished for their zeal in translating the Scriptures into the native tongues of those whom they taught, and for revising their translations continually, that they might be brought to the greatest degree of accuracy which the circumstances of the time permitted.

Nor were any of the early reformers more active in this pious work than our English divines. The name of Wiclif stands conspicuously forward in connection with the translation of the Scriptures, though the amount of his practical success was disproportioned to his zeal and diligence. He saw clearly in the fourteenth century the nature and conditions of the warfare with mediæval ignorance and superstition, which could be brought to a successful issue only with the growing knowledge and civilization of the sixteenth. He at least pointed the way which was afterwards pursued with signal success by the founders of the Protestant churches of Europe.

It is a question of no small interest and importance to the Protestant churches of our own time, whether it has not been in opposition to the dictates of the soundest wisdom that they have departed from the example of their forefathers in this matter,whether the growing empire of Superstition on the one hand, and of Infidelity on the other, be not the natural effect of the comparative neglect with which the Scriptures have been treated for the last two centuries.

It is not necessary for the purposes of this paper to mention in detail the different English translations of the Scriptures that were published during the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth and Elizabeth, before the present Authorized Version was issued in the year 1611 by the authority of James the First. They were numerous and characterized by different degrees of accuracy. When James succeeded to the English crown, the opinion was general and not unfounded that a new version was still wanted, in which the errors of preceding translations might be avoided, and which might be adapted for general use. Accordingly, a considerable number of the most learned men of that time were employed on this great national work, and, as the result of their labours, the present Authorized Version was published, and appointed by Royal authority to be used in all the

churches in which James' authority was acknowledged. Recommended thus by Royal command, united to a very large degree of internal excellence, it soon superseded all other translations, and so has continued to the present day the only representative of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures to the Protestant churches of this kingdom.

For nearly two centuries and a half, then, the work to which the early reformers attached so much importance has been abandoned. No attempt has been made in this long period to remedy the defects of a translation which was made under great disadvantages. The original Scriptures themselves have been more successfully studied and are much better understood, yet no attempt has been made by public authority to give to the nation generally the benefit of this increased knowledge. The chief instrument of that distinguished Reformation which was accomplished by our forefathers is still in our hands, fitted for our use, as it was for theirs, in enlightening and reforming the world, but from certain adventitious circumstances deprived of a portion of its native beauty and power, and so of its spiritual efficacy ;-and is no effort to be made to remove any shade, however slight, which human infirmity may have thrown upon it, and to let its light fall clear and unclouded on the minds and hearts of men? Has God spoken to men, and are those men voluntarily to permit his word to be only partially audible to the world, by the imperfection of the medium through which it is transmitted from generation to generation? Piety towards God and charity to men equally require that such questions should be answered in the negative. And their force is not to be evaded by any reasonable doubt respecting the fact on which they are founded, that the Authorized Version of the Bible is in many respects imperfect, and that to make it justly represent the original Scriptures it requires much improvement.

Archbishop Newcome, in his "Historical View of English Biblical Translations," has collected such a multitude and variety of testimonies to this effect, that one may almost say that every writer of eminence in every church who has treated this subject, has declared the necessity of a thorough revision of our English Bible. It is unnecessary to adduce authorities at any length in proof of a point which is so generally admitted. Bishop Lowth (Prelim. Diss. to Isaiah) says of the Authorized Version, that "as to style and language it admits but of little improvement; but in respect of the sense and the accuracy of interpretation, the improvements of which it is capable are great and numberless." On the same subject, Dr. Blayney (Plem. Disc. to Jeremiah) writes thus: "A new translation of the Scriptures in our own language for the public service has long been most devoutly wished by many of the best friends to religion and our Established Church, who, though not insensible of the merit of our present

version in common use, and justly believing it to be equal to the very best that is now extant in any language, ancient or modern, sorrowfully confess that it is still far from being so perfect as it might and should be; that it often represents the errors of faulty original with too exact a resemblance; whilst, on the other hand, it has mistaken the true sense of the Hebrew in not a few places, and sometimes substituted an interpretation so obscure and perplexed that it becomes almost impossible to make out with it any sense at all." To the same purpose I might quote Principal Campbell, of Aberdeen; Dr. Geddes, the learned Roman Catholic translator of the Books of Moses; John Wesley, and many others. Even Dr. Cumming (Bible Revision and Translation) concedes that some most important words are "wrongly translated" in our English Bible; that here King James's translators have made an "obvious mistake," and there a "blunder;" that one of the proposed alterations in the Common Version "would be a vast improvement;" and himself illustrates by examples the acknowledged fact, that our English Bible sometimes expresses the sense of the sacred writers obscurely, and sometimes misses it altogether.

It was quite impossible that it should be otherwise. The editors of the Received Greek Text of the New Testament had access to none of the most ancient and valuable manuscripts and versions those indispensable materials for the formation of a correct text; and they were themselves too little skilled in the art of criticism to form any correct judgment of the relative value of those that they possessed; while it is even doubted, not without reason, whether they had sufficient impartiality and independence of theological prejudice or prepossession, to adhere to the text of their manuscripts when it contradicted any dogma of their church. Though this remark applies chiefly to the Complutensian editors, yet as Erasmus used their text in preparing his own last two editions, the suspicion which theirs excited extends also to his; the more so, that he sometimes adopted the Complutensian reading in preference to his own, in obedience to popular clamour. The Received Text, then, being the text of Erasmus with few and trifling exceptions, was formed from imperfect originals by incompetent men, who from timidity, or theological bias, or ecclesiastical influence, were sometimes unfaithful to the degree of knowledge which they possessed.

Our English translators, again, from whom our Authorized Version proceeded, could not of course make a translation more in harmony with the original Scriptures than the Greek text which they translated. And the different branches of theological learning have been so much more extensively and accurately cultivated since their time, that, as compared with biblical scholars of our own day, they were but imperfectly qualified for the work which they undertook. Though many of them were men of

great learning and genius, yet in regard to Eastern languages and Eastern customs our own age supplies learning of a higher class, and genius more cultivated in those parts of theological science which the work in question especially requires.

It must not be overlooked, in connection with this part of the subject, that King James's translators performed their task in other respects under influences not very unlike those which interfered with the success, if not with the faithfulness, of the editors of the Greek text. Royal authority prescribed a definite course for them on one side, while theological opinion appears to have given a partial character to their translation on the other. Among the rules that by Royal command they were carefully to observe, one was that they were to follow the Bishops' Bible as closely as the original would permit,—that is, that the new translation should give all possible countenance to royal and episcopal authority as against the Puritans; for, if we may believe Dr. Geddes, the Bishops' Bible, like the Authorized Version which was founded upon it, was inferior to the Geneva Bible, and even to that of Tindall and Coverdale, which had been published nearly a century before. In another of these rules they were commanded to prefer such significations of words as had been used by the "most eminent Fathers," and which were most agreeable to the "analogy of faith." And it is not difficult to imagine who would be esteemed the most eminent Fathers by the admirers of Augustin and the disciples of Calvin and Knox. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the analogy of faith meant a conformity to the popular creed of the reformers at that period, i. e. Calvinism as it is laid down in the Westminster Confession, that stern and gloomy theology of our fathers which is now so fast yielding to a gentler and more benignant faith around us, or to Deism, where that more benevolent faith is not allowed free utterance. "King James's translators," says Dr. Geddes (Prospectus, p. 2), "like all other translators of their day, were too much guided by theological sentiment, and seem on some occasions to have allowed their religious prejudices to get the better of their judgment." In this circumstance we have an argument in favour of a revision of the English Bible which no candid and impartial friend of scriptural truth can reasonably or consistently

resist.

Under the unquestionable circumstances of the case, then, it would have been nothing short of a miracle if the Authorized Version of the Scriptures had not been characterized by much imperfection. And is it not most remarkable that the whole. Protestant community do not at once unite in demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of error, serious and acknowledged, from records so venerable and sacred?

Some thirty years ago a work of Milton's on Christian Doctrine was discovered, and immediately, by Royal command, it