Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 62:245 (Jan 1905)
Article: The Latest Translation Of The Bible
Author: Henry M. Whitney

BSac 62:245 (Jan 1905) p. 71

The Latest Translation Of The Bible

Henry M. Whitney

VII. Concerning Certain Other Versions, More Or Less In The Modern

The idea of making a version of the Bible in modern English is not altogether recent, for we suppose the first of all our versions, that of Wycliffe, to have been made in the language of the time. Nor has the thought or the endeavor been that of a very few. It is likely that within the past twenty years many such manuscripts have been prepared, and have been kept from publication only by a chilly lack of faith among the publishers; it is likely that many parts of the Bible have been written out for the private satisfaction of the writers or for a circle of friends; it is likely that,—besides such work as Conybeare and Howson’s version of the Epistles of Paul, scattered through their life of the Apostle,— there have been printed far more versions in the modern than most people know. We desire in this paper to consider several that have happened to come to our knowledge or to seem to us for some reason worthy of mention.

1. In 1858 Leicester Ambrose Sawyer brought out a version (Boston: J. P. Jewett & Co.) entitled “The New Testament, translated from the Original Greek, with Chronological Arrangement of the Sacred Books, and Improved Divisions

BSac 62:245 (Jan 1905) p. 72

of Chapters and Verses.” The first paragraph of the preface is as follows: “This is not a work of compromises, or of conjectural interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures, neither is it a paraphrase, but a strict literal rendering. It neither adds nor takes away; but aims to express the original with the utmost clearness, and force, and with the utmost precision. It adopts, however, except in the prayers, a thoroughly modern style, and makes freely whatever changes are necessary for this purpose.”

The most conspicuous note of its modernness is its use of “you” for “thou,” but it is very nearly consistent in being modern: the only exceptions that we have noticed are the use of “begat” for “begot” and of “I and my Father” for “my Father and I”; it sometimes is more modern than is necessary, as in using “it would be better” for “it were better” and “a change of mind” for “repentance.” On the other hand, it does not make a mistake of the “Twentieth Century” version by attempting to blot out all local color: indeed, it increases local color by using the terms of the ancient coinages, as “assarion,” “quadrans,” “didrachma,” “denarius”; similarly, it has “modius” for “bushel,” and many such ancient words transferred. It is badly in bondage to the tenses of the original: for example, in John 11:40: “Did