Correspondence Between The Old and the New Testament obscured.
MANY passages in the New Testament are quotations from the Old, or distinct allusions to it; and are designed by the Holy Spirit, who indited them, to be so understood. But the faults of the common version sometimes hide this fact entirely from view. Some examples will render this clear. The common version reads thus: Exodus, xxiv. 8.—Behold THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT which the Lord hath made with you. Hebrews, ix. 20.—This is THE BLOOD OF THE TESTAMENT which the Lord hath enjoined unto you. If any one could possibly imagine what "the blood of a testament," that is, a will, may be, he would hardly detect in it the allusion designed to "the blood of the covenant" spoken of in Exodus. The preliminary revision of the Bible Union removes all obscurity from the passages. No such word as "testament" appears in the whole chapter, but in every case the original term is translated "covenant," and the whole connection of the argument and all the allusions to the Old Testament or Old Covenant scriptures, are thus rendered manifest and striking. In a similar way the allusions to the Old Testament history in Acts vii, 45, and Hebrews iv, 8, are completely destroyed in the common version, and totally erroneous ideas conveyed, by the name JESUS being used in both cases instead of Joshua. The remarkable coincidence in the teachings of the Old and New Testament in very numerous passages, has never been fully brought out in an English version. No translator can do full justice to the one without being familiar with the other. They require the most careful comparison, and the faults of both must be removed to make that comparison just. Wherever the words of the original will permit, the phraseology of the translation should have the same form in both Testaments. Hosea xi, 1, and Matthew ii, 15, might readily be made to correspond in the translation. Both could be "Out of Egypt have I called my son," or both, "I have called my son out of Egypt." There is no necessity or propriety in having one in one form, and the other in a different form. Here the Greek word THELO is translated WILL HAVE, instead of desire, which is a more accurate translation, and corresponds with that of the Old Testament. There is nothing in the Greek to prevent the last quotation being rendered in accordance with the Old Testament—"And cast lots upon my vesture." To make this case still worse in the common version, the very same Greek words are translated in John xix, 24—AND FOR MY VESTURE DID THEY CAST LOTS.—Bible Union.