Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-01
THE NEW BIBLE,


 A London correspondent of the Chicago Times writes that the last sheet of the new revision of the New Testament has received the signature of the Queens printer, and that the bound volumes were to be on their way over the world before this time. We shall therefore soon have an opportunity to compare the new English Bible with the yer sions now in use and see what changes have been made.
 The changes are many, although there have been no alterations in the present text not strictly required by faithfulness to the original. When the King James version was made the grammatical niceties of the Greek language were unknown and Hebrew studies were in their infancy. In many cases so weak were the translators in Hebrew that they were compelled to leave Hebrew words untranslated, not knowing or being able to guess their meaning. Some of the mistakes they made are thus touched upon in the Times letter:
 ! 4 familiar instance is the word Belial, which is supposed to be proper name, but 1t sim ply means unworthy" and the phrase ''sons of Belial' should properly read unworthy men ;" ''Jasher'' is not proper name, but an adjective, meaning upright, and the Book of Jasher'' was the Book of Up right" The ''Gammadims'' (Ezek. xvii 1l5 are "warriors D ''Pannag' (v. ID means "a candy; ;'' ''Sheth' means tumult ; ''Bajith'' an idol temple. Their wild guesses often show absurd blunders. The tInules'' { mentioned in Genesis as having been found were warm springs pledges they turned into 'sthick clay :" fleet into both 'tpierc- ing'' and ''crooked D 'curls" into 'fgal- G,J.a D triches'' into fowls ;" ''goats into ''satyrs ; 'droves'' into linen yarn ;" ''set up" they render as least down. and Joseph's ''tunic with long sleeves they transmogrify into 8 ''coat of many co1ors." Instances might be multiplied until patience was exhausted of | their inaccuracy.
 Since the King James version there has been great advance in scholarship, and ! there will be few if any such mistakes in the new version.
 The largest loss sustained is the narrative of the woman taken in adultery, which is 1 omitted from the eighth chapter of the 1 gospel of John. The interpolated verses ! about the Trinity q John v ', 8 are also dropped. The general character of the changes made in the New Testament are thus indicated The new revision of the New Testament | will at first shock the Protestant world. It is not recognizable a Bible. The chapters and verses gone the running headlines l are gone verses are missing, changed, pared /; familiar texts that have become graven on the minds of church people for generations have ' disappeared and in their places are words ! foreign to the eye and strange to the ear. Verbal and grammatical changes may be counted by the tens of thousands The mar of 1 ter and verse, but the capitals, punctuation ] and paragraphs lacking in the original are, of f course supplied, and, for ease of reference to 1 the present version the present divisions are marked parenthetically. The misleading head l lines disappear finally, without sign to denote | their improper intrusion. The effect Is str1k- 1 ing, and a marked improvement. The se- l quence of the gospel narratives, the logic of l St. Paul, take on new appearance and force | that is not all owing to the improvement ln 1 grammatical construction of the text, although | in first reading 1t is difficult to distinguish 1 how much is owing to the one and how much 1 to the other.
 1 The new Bible will of course meet some I opposition, but there are no reasons but sen- l timental ones yet apparent why it should. l The revision has been made by the most emi- nent scholars of Great Britain and America. 1 The Anglican Convocation of Canterbury l originated the enterprise, but the great work was not committed to scholars of the Estab- 1 lisLed church alone The foremost scholars | among it's clergy were indeed appointed to the | labor, but with them were joined the most | learned divines and professors of the syeral l Presbyterian bodies, and the Wesleyan, the Baptist and the Congregational churches. A 1 committee as catholic in it's character was or | eanized in this country, embracing teachers
 in the great theological seminaries of every | denomination and including Woolsey, Dwight, l Schaff, Bishop Lee, Oonant, Osgood, Thayer, Abbott, Van Dyke and others whose names stand high among scholars every where. These have also had the help of the | greatest scholars of Europe. The new version
 is based upon a careful comparison of over I l, 200 manuscripts, 98 being ancient, from the l fourth to the tenth century. The most val | uable of all these have been discovered with l in generation, the Codex Sinaiticus, found | by Tischendorf in the convent on Sinai, and l the Codex Vaticanus, found neglected in the Vatican library at Rome. In addition to | those priceless writings ''all the quotations 1 by the patristic and early writers have been l collected, and the early translations into Sy-
 riac, Latin, Gothic, Egyptian, Celtic, Arabic 1 and Slavonic." A work done as this has been, 1 and by such men, deserves fair reception.