Bible Translations

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 29, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 22.

Bible Translations.

The Bible has now been translated in whole or in part into four hundred and twenty-one different languages and dialects. At the beginning of the last century, there were but fifty different translations of the Scriptures. This great work, performed with so little noise, has been performed almost wholly by missionaries, as Dr. Judson Smith points out. “Think of the time and pains that are necessary to obtain such an understanding of Chinese, Japanese, Tamil, Hindustani, Persian, Turkish, and the hundreds of other tongues, as to be able to converse intelligibly with those to whom these are the mother tongue. And the translator must go quite beyond this, and so familiarize himself with vocabulary and idioms as to think in the strange tongue, and to put the very meaning of the Bible, narratives, poetry, prophecy, and doctrine, clearly and unmistakably before the reader.” This is so easy to say, but it involves untold labor. Each year there are circulated in heathen lands Bibles or portions of Bibles to the extent of over 2,500,000 copies. We praise God that it is done, and the Lord will know how at last to render to each his merit of need.