Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-05-25
The New Bible or the OId-.-Which 7

our own words, whenever we talk about at
old Bible and new Bible. A new Bible /,
a simple impossibility. There is only on,
! Bible, and there can be no other. When W,
speak Of Coverdale's Bible, the Bishops
Bible, or the English Bible, our words are
misleading. OF course, we mean only diff
ferent translations or versions Of the same
Sacred Scriptures" the same yesterday
today and forever"
Il is in no rational sense a new Bible
which this eventful decade is bringing 10
English speaking millions. IL is not even
new translation that is offered us. In
strctness, no new translation of the Bible
into English has been made since the DAYS
of William Tyndale, that glorious sun
among translators, in comparison with
which, even Wickliffe himself was scarcely
more than the Morning Star. The wonder.
full felicities of Tyndale's English have made
the phraseology of our Authorized Version
precious and halowed to the hearts Of gen.
GRAFTON after generation. As Faber puts IL,
convert to Romanism though he be, I" It
lives on the ear like music that can never be
forgotten, like the sound of church bells
which the convert hardly knows how he can
forego." No other translation OF the Scrip.
lures could have the least chance of accept
ance with the people of this century.
In the utmost strictness, it is not only not
new Bible, or new translation, but not
even a new version that is offered us. The
title page of the Revised New Testament
reads significantly "The Version set forth
A. ID. 1911 compared with the Most Ancient
Authorities, and revised A. d. 1881" The
authors Of our common version wrote =" We
never thought we should need to make a
new translation, nor yet to make bad
one a good one; but to make good one
better, or out of many good ones, one
principal good one." Every syllable of
these words, the new revisers might adopt
as their own utterance. Their highest
thought has been TO make ga clear and
accurate version clearer and more accurate"
Never for moment have they been indiffer-
ent to the excellency of King James Yer
sion. So far as possible they have left all
its sacred associations with devout Christian
thought, all its hallowed idioms, and even
its peculiar rythm undisturbed. No article
of faith, and not even the least of all its
moral precepts has been in the slightest de-
gree modified.
Some forms of expression and the form of
the printed page have been essentially
changed, but we often cherish too great
reverence for familiar forms of page, print
and dialect. We know perfectly well thu at
no existing form of the Bible is, in itself, a
thing of divine inspiration. We have not
the original manuscripts in our hands, and
very few of us could decipher them if we
had them. If we read the Word of God, we
must depend on copies and translations.
Neither trauslators nor copists can be con-
sidered either inspired or infallible. Cor.
recting and emending their work cannot be
irreverence to Gods Word. Revision is in
no possible sense changing Gods Word; it
is only changing mans work in reference to
Gods Word. So far from altering the Bible
it is only so asking for the old paths as to
find out what is really the Bible, the whole
Bible and nothing but the Bible. That is a
a shallow reverence for divine revelation
which confines itself to our authorized YER.
sion, or any other version of modern times.
True reverence for Gods Word asks for
nothing less than the nearest possible ap-
Proclamation to the mind of Spirit as origi n
ally revealed.
The more highly we prize diamond
the more we insist that the lapidary
shall bring its every radiant facet to
The most faultless finish. The purer the
plate glass, the more anxious we are to re-
move every trace of blur from its surface.
The least dimness in the view of the tele
scope is fearfully fatal to clear vision of far
off celestial spheres. The Bible is that tel
sscope through which alone we can look out
INTO the heavens beyond the heavens. Its
enses cannot be too faultlessly clear. The
more nationally we revere the revelation OF
Tod, the more we must yearn to have even
,he slightest trace of error removed from its
into our own vernacuar-the
more we must yearn for every help to get
ling at the actual sayings of the Holy
Spirit 1t is but reasonable to suppose that
'he Christian scholarship of this last quar-.
,er OF the nineteenth century can set the
words of the Spirit in more perfect Eng
ish form than was possible in the first quar-
er OF the seventeenth century. w.s.D.