Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1881-03-10

Affect materially the doctrines convey.
ed can be counted by units had al
most said upon the fingers of one hand
vi the one hundred and twenty
thousand differences in spelling. ar.
rangcment and phraseoIogy which
have been noticed in our sixteen hun.
dred manuscripts many are found only
III one manuscript, or in very few
many others are obviously erroneous
at first sight, like the mistakes We
sometimes meet with in letter or In
II newspaper 50 that the whole mum.
Der OF readings in which there j. real.
ly any room for serious doubt or dis
cussion-including questions Of mere
spelling, grammatical forms, relative
position Of words aud the likc--does
not exceed from sixteen hundred 10
two thousand.
For the simple translator the prob.
lem is still less extensive; for il is
evident that mere questions Of orthog-
raphy, and in many cases questions Of
relative position, do not affect him one
way or the other 1t il an encourag-
ing fact that by the labor Of scholars
the number of what can truly be call
ed doubtful readings is rapidly dimin.
i-hing; point after point becomes set
tied beyond possibility Of reversal, and
by the strict application Of the regular
scientific laws of criticism the text Of
the New Testament Is becoming estab-
lishcd with a certainty far surprising
that which attaches to the text Of any
Of the proiane author. OF antiquity.
EXAMPLEs or CHANGE.
In regard to the revision, one Of the
first questions that come, up j., What
shall be the style Of language There
l., perhaps, wrong popular imprcs.
sion as respects Biblical style, the pc
culiarities Of old English found IN our
translation Of the Bible being mis-
taken, for pccularitie- OF the Bible
itself Now, it j. no more literal to
translate in the fourth Gospel the
wind biowcth where it listeth,' than TO
translate the wind blows where it
choose" The former mo more the
style Of Divine inspiration than the
latter; nay, the latter, to u to-day, is
the more exact representation in Eng
li-h Of the inspired original. Still |
think wc shall all agree that the Con.
vocation at Canterbury wa wise when,
in 1870, it decided that the style Of
dictiOn which wc find IN our Bible, Of
1911, itself largely determined by
Tyuialc'- version of 1884, shall be
retained 80 far o. possible, 50 that the
rcvi-cr- could hardly find exceptions
to such q word as "bloweih' nor to
"ii-tcih' unless they should believe
that the word had become uniuteliigi-
hlc to modern readers. i somewhat
harder question has regard TO such
grammatical forms a. be for "is' or
are which" for who and the
like. "Our Father Uhich art in Heav-
en-, j. a mi,iransation in the English
Of the nineteenth century, for the
English Of our day, like the Greek Of
old, has n masculine ,rbo, n we'll a.
ncu,cr vhich, aud has no right TO sub
stituic one for the other. But three
centuries ago (which" was admissible
English for masculine relative pro.
noun, and its frequent use in our
Bible is one of the most striking char
actcristics of what is called the Bibli.
cal style.
FIDELITY TO ORIGINAL MEANING.
1t has been urged Just at this point
that fidelity TO the meaning of the
original requires literal modern rem
dering; the case having been cited
for instance, Of clergyman, not want
ing in general intelligence--but he
must have been wanting in the very
elements Of Greek scholarship-who
actually enlarged, in a discourse, upon
the sublimity of the use of the vague,
grand 'rhich in this passage, instead of
aoho, "for the latter" it was alleged,
would lessen the majesty Of the
Deity" by making the representation
of Him too sharply defined, too near
and personal, perhaps too anthropo.
morphic. Well, | can only say that
it has rested with the committee, in all
such cases, TO weigh the conflicting
claims of the preservation of the old
archaic color of our translation and
the requirements of modern grammar
SO, too, with archaisms in the use of
words, in which the question becomes
at times much more important for
there is little danger perhaps of any
ones being misled by the "bes" and
the "whiches !" but man of inferior
education might easily misunderstood
such expressions as david left his
carriage and ran down into the val.
ley" when his carriage is not a coach,
but some bread and wine Il prevent.
cd the morning" when prevented was
simply anticipated or "came beiore;"
che was LET" meaning "he was hin.
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