THE International Sunday-School Association is putting forth efforts to place a copy of the American Standard Bible in the hands of every member of the Sunday-schools in America. They ask for the cooperation of Sunday-schools and the ministers of America for this purpose.
We are glad this step is being taken; not that we have anything against the Old Version. In the providence of God it has been the means of blessing millions, but it is not the best translation. It was the best in its day, but it isn't the best now. Some of the terms which it uses have undergone complete change of meaning. Take for instance the word "prevent" which now means "to hinder," but formerly meant "to go before." Its use in that sense in the Common Version, many do not know. The texts where it is used are thus obscured to the general reader.
Take the old expression "earing" which formerly meant "plowing." We have been asked very many times what it means "in earing time, and in harvest." The American Version corrects this.
We have our old English word "seethe;" of course, there are many who understand what it means; but there are many who do not, and "boil" is just as good English as "seethe."
Then, too, the American Version is much more uniform in its renderings. It does not translate the same original word by so many English terms, nor does it translate so many original words by one English term. These make it confusing. Take for instance the word "hell," which with one exception in the New Testament comes from two words, "Hades," and "Gehenna." The one, "the abode of the dead," the other, "a place of punishment." It is impossible to distinguish between these two in the Common Version, but the American Standard Version so distinguishes in the texts or in the margin, that there can be no question as to the meaning of the term. In the one case the Greek word is transferred, in the other it is placed in the margin.
A few years ago we met a man that had some followers who had built up one of the tenets of his sect upon the two renderings of Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit, contending that the Holy Ghost was one thing, and the Holy Spirit another. Both of them come from the same originals; but the American Version is uniform in this respect.
One other most excellent feature is that the covenant name of God is retained throuout the Old Testament—the great note in blank which God has given to His people, and which faith may fill out with all the blessed promises of Jehovah, the covenant God. He who devoutly reads the Old Testament feels drawn closer to the Creator of the heavens and the earth than where he meets continually the term "Lord," which may be applied to human dignitaries and false gods, as well as to the true.
These are only a few features of superior excellence in the American Standard Version. There are many others. It has all the excellences of the old in its diction, and strong, clear expressiveness, and many others that the Common Version does not have. The greatest enemy that it has is prejudice—prejudice that would melt like frost ferns before the sun, if people would but read it.
There is one other thought, that we would like to express in this connection: There are some who seem to get the idea that the Common, or King James, Version was inspired. This, of course, immediately brings us back to the primary question, What is the Bible? what is the word of God? A German who did not understand English would have absolutely no use for any English version. He would prefer his German translation. The scholar who understands the original languages as he does his own tongue, prefers the Hebrew Old Testament, and the Greek New Testament. He gets back then into the original languages in which the words were given to men. Ought we not to be anxious to secure the very best translation of those original words! We are glad that God in His providence has brought about this last revision of the Bible. For thirty long years it was a labor of sacrifice and love, for which no compensation was received by those who did the work, save in the one thought that they were making the word of God clearer to the common reader.