The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1882-03-16
THE NEW TESTAMENT REVISION.
By DIR. j. NJ. WRIGHT.

i L. .
1t is necessary that each nation
have the word of God in its own
language. A translation is there
fore needed. A translation is an
attempt on the part of learned men
to give in another language the eX-
act meaning of the sacred original.
Such a translation is valuable only
in proportion to the fidelity and ac
curacy with which it gives US the
true meaning of the original. The
British and Foreign Bible Society
and the American Bible Society
have published the bible in more
than fifty languages. If new light
has dawned on the missionaries in
any one of the countries in whose
language the bible has. been trans
lated, these missionaries may re
wise the translation and bring it
nearer the meaning of the holy
book. The integrity of the bible
is not married thereby, not even if
King James translation be the one
so revised. There have been many
translations of the bible into En-
glish. Wyckliffe made the first in
1882. The English language was
young then and it was growing rap
idly. New words were coming into
use and old ones were falling out
of use. In this way Wycklifie's
version became almost unintelli
BILE to the people and necessity de
manded a new one. Nearly GEN.
fury and a half however elapsed
before another was made. VIM.
Tyndale published his translation
of the new testament in 1925. There
was danger in making translations
in those days and Tyndale was
burnt in 1886 for presuming to do
such thing. His version, howev-
er, was excellent and much of 1t
passed through subsequent versions
into that of King James. He seems
to have been raised up for that spe |
cial purpose. He adopted a plain,
simple style eminently suited to the
minds Of the masses. SO this style |
passed into the common version
and its chief excellence is its SIM
plicity. Then come in success
sion Coverdale's bible, Matthews
bible, Cranmer's bible, the Geneva
bible, and the Bishops bible. These
various bibles were gotten up by |
men who thought to give the people
more accurate translations of the
holy scriptures. AT last, King
j ames lent his authority to this
great work and appointed forty
seven men to complete the yer
sion. They were divided in six
two to hold their ses-
sions at Oxford, two at Cambridge,
and two at Westminster. This was
a work of vast Importance, because
it was to take its place in the
church as the word of God. We |
have seen, however, that the very
text from which they transl ated
was imperfect, having been formed
on late and inferior manuscripts. |
They used Beza's Greek Testament !
of 1898. Since that time textual |
criticism has come in and sub |
iected the sacred text to very |
searching scrutiny. Under this in
vestigation many changes have
heen made in the text on the au
thority of ancient and excellent
This constitutes one
great advantage of the present gen
Grafton over that of 1911 when the
version was made. No
man can deny the excellencies of
King James version, nor does any
one seek to do that; the question is
not whether it has excellencies, but
whether it has blemishes. The
of the present day has
settled that question. 1t is folly
in the extreme to say that scholars
Of the present day are not better
qualified to translate the bible than
5he scholars of two hundred and
seventy years ago. To decide that,
l man needs only to be acquainted
With the scholarship of the two
lges. The advances in the
present age in all departments are
simply enormous, and the advance
n classical scholarship is quite as
great as in any other. The Greek I
scholars of to-day not only have
many advantages over those of ,
Gil, but they have used those adj |
vantages and are really superior.
TO enter fully into this question .
would take too much space. The {
PRESENT generation is better quail
led TO tell us exactly what Mat |
hew, Mark and Paul wrote in Greek