LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 27, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 35.

LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE.

A so-called “translation” of the New Testament is being industriously “boomed” on the argument that the language of our common, or King James’, version is not the language of to-day, but of three hundred years ago, and that we need a new translation in the every-day language of the people now. And so men have read the New Testament (in the Greek, too, we presume), and have endeavored not to translate the Greek into our every day-language, but to translate their understanding of the New Testament into our every-day language. At least this seems to be what they have done, whatever they aimed at; for they are many times a long way from the original. What are the facts in reference to our so-called “Authorized Version”?

1. It was translated nearly three hundred years ago, finished in 1611.

2. It was not so much a translation as a revision of translations before it.

3. But it fixed in a way no other book has ever done the English tongue, and has perpetuated it to the present. It contains very few, comparatively, obsolete or obsolescent words, words which have undergone a change in meaning, and archaic expressions.

4. It was translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that were confessedly far from perfection. The earlier better ones, now so well known, had not at that time been discovered.

5. The study of cognate languages—languages from the same stock as the Hebrew and Greek—had not, in 1611, reached the advance stage that it has at present. A translation to-day would therefore be preferable. But with the exception of obsolete words, archaic expressions, and words changed by age in meaning, why should the style of the simple, quaint, forcible, expressively beautiful language of our Bible be changed? There is no better English in existence, and there are fewer words to send one to a dictionary than in any other book. Read its sweet and beautiful stories to children from five to ten, and they have no trouble in understanding them. We were intimately acquainted for many years with a school teacher, who, when a child, learned to read from her New Testament. Many times she read it through, and was truly converted when nine years old, with no shallow experience. She received no special help from any one. Her experience obtained with her Testament was beyond the experiences of those who surrounded her.

But the language of the Common Version is not the language of three hundred years ago. It is simpler in form than books in general then published, and the spelling and forms of letters have greatly improved. Here is a specimen of the English of 1635, taken from “A Treatise of the Sabbath-Day, by Dr. Fr. White, L. Bishop of Ely.” In the following extracts Dr. White is stating the position of Theophilus Brabourne, whom he is answering. We have to use the letter f for the long s, not having the other in stock:—

His Assumption.

The Fourth Commandement, Remember the Sabbath-day to keepe it holy, Is one of the ten Commandements, and it is a Pre-cept of principall note, placed in the first Table: and the observation thereof is required in the Law, and in the Prophets with great vehemency: and the transgression punished with much severity, Exod. 35.2. Whosoever doth any work therein shall die, Num. 15.32. they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day, etc. And all the congregation brought him without the host, and stoned him with stones, and he died, as the Lord had commanded.

This is quite simple because Scriptural. Here is a paragraph taken at random from Dr. White’s introduction:—

The Gentile Infidels insulted over Christians, because of divisions, which by the fraud of Heretikes, were raised among them: they scorned and derided their religion, imputing the base opinions, and actions of Heretikes, to the sound part of the Church in generall: And alleged this as a prime reason, wherefore they could not beleeve them because they were divided into so many factions, and for that their religion was a confused fardell, and rifferaffe, of various and prodigious opinions.

This is a good sample of seventeenth century English, which a “twentieth-century man” will have no trouble in understanding. Here is a quotation from Scripture made in 1636:—

On the seventh day God ended His worke which He had made, and hee rested on the seventh day from all His worke which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it hee had rested from all His worke which God created and made. Gen. 2:2, 3 as quoted in Heylyn’s, “Hist. of the Sabbath,” 1636.

Surely it will be seen that spelling and typography make a wonderful difference between the Bible as printed then and now.

But is there not need of a revision of our Bible of 1611? Undoubtedly, and we have two such revisions: (1) The Revised Version of 1881 which helped materially, and (2) The American Standard Revised Version of 1901, which is a great improvement over both, and presents the very best translation of the original extant in the best English of to-day. More of this elsewhere.

A word in conclusion. Keep to the language of the Bible, the clear, forcible English, which can not be improved by the introduction of words of Latin derivation. Keep the Bible to its own style, which God in His providence gave it, differing from all other books in large measure in its simplicity, even in the time of its translation, 1611. Let parents and children become saturated with its pointed style, its piquant phraseology, its unexcelled English. It is the purest well of the undefiled Anglo-Saxon. It made and it has perpetuated a language. Let the children of God keep it.