The Word “Carriages.”

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 23, 1858

The Word “Carriages.”

“We took up our carriages, and went up to Jerusalem.” Acts xxi, 15.

This is one of those passages, whose meaning is quite likely to be misapprehended, unless the reader is well acquainted with the changes which have taken place in the English language since the Bible was translated. Probably nine-tenths of all who read the verse, suppose, and very naturally too, that Paul and his companions were provided with such conveniences as now are known by the name of carriages. Even writers of books have fallen into the same error. Thus we read in Wilson’s “Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land:”

“This, I am inclined to believe, was not the track which was taken by the apostle Paul, when he went up to Jerusalem from the coast, as he appears to have traveled in some conveyance moved on wheels; for it is so far from being in any degree possible to draw one along, that, on the contrary, a great exertion is necessary to travelers to get forward their mules.”

The error here is a comparatively harmless and amusing one, but the same mistake has been made the foundation of serious cavil at the truth of the passage. “How is this possible,” says a modern objector, “when there is nothing but a mountain track, impassable for wheels, between Cesarea and Jerusalem?” The blunder in the former case and the sneer in the latter would alike have been saved, had the writers known that when the Bible was translated, “carriage” did not mean “that which carries,” but “that which was carried.” “We took up our carriages” means no more and no less than “we took up our baggage,” or, as one of the earlier translations familiarly expresses it, “we trussed up our fardels.”

Prof. Scholefield, in his “Hints for an Improved translation of the New Testament,” recommends that the passage be rendered, “we put up our baggage.” There are other passages in the Bible where the word “carriage” is evidently used as synonymous with baggage. For example:

“So they turned and deserted, and put the little ones, and the cattle, and the carriage before them.” Judges xxviii, 21.

“And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage.” 1 Sam. xvii, 22.

David’s “carriage” consisted, as we learn from the preceding verses, of an ephah of parched corn, ten loaves of bread, and ten cheeses. Examples of a similar character may readily be cited from historians and essayists who were contemporaneous with the translations of the Bible.

North, in his translations of Plutarch, says, “that Spartacus withdrew an opposing army, and took all their carriage;” and Bacon, quoting 1 Sam. xxx, 24, speaks of those “who stood with the carriages,” substituting the word “carriage” for “stuff,” which appears in the ordinary version.

In fact, “carriage,” “luggage,” and “baggage,” were not only formed in the same way, but were originally synonyms; baggage being that which is bagged, luggage that which is lugged, and carriage that which is carried.—Vt. Chronicle.