The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1883-12-12
THE OLD TESTAMENT REVISION.
Changes which Have Been Made in the
Coming Retran ylatiun,

Changes which Have Been Made in the
Coming RetranIation.
The new revision of the Old Testament has
been completed, and will soon be before the
public. It's safe to predict that 1t will be re-
Ceived with fur less favor than the New lesta-
ment revision, and that it will be a long time
before it Will come into general use. The rea-
son for this is that it is hardly recognizable as
the same book. ltis not tlat the chapters and
verses give place to orderly arrangement and
proper puragraphing; not that the poems are
printed as verse instead of prose. The words
and meaning are so changed that one may
hunt i'm vain for either the letter or the spirit
of the Old quotation, and new vocabulary
must be learned of moral and religious
phrases from he patriarChs of Old.
While the wOrt of the New Testament was
essentially new revision, the work on the
Old Testum MT is new translation. The
Ia or on the former was TO agree upon Crock
text; to decide which of the 10000 readings
made by the many ancient manuscripts dis
covered of la.e years belonged to the original
There were comparatively few words m the
Greek which were mistrausl ated by he Jacob
ite scholars Their ma CraI not their learn
ing, was at fault where fault was found. The
change i'm the New Testament is therefore
less verbal than teXtuaI If a phrase is re-
Ia ned, its sense remains unchanged; If the
words are changed e is merely to convey the
The revision was of the Greek first and Of the
English only to conform to the changes
Nothing of this is shown I'm the revised Old
Tcs amant. The Hebrew text used by the
reyisers is essentially the same that was used
by the transiatOrs. There are no ancient
COdiCes known by which its errors can be cor
rccted. The 1000 rea liugs of the few modern
manuscripts are OF little or no Importance;
the Septu3giut has no received text for cola
tiOn. Why then is it. that a new translation
was made, In brief, because the translation
Of the He rev Scriptures now in use was
maue Dl men unacQuu n.eu with lue subtle
ties Of the language who bundered at every
stage and step, ami who Wers often compelled
to guess at the meIuiu of words. From one
a n ON
the hurized version of the Old Testa-
mCut is pied i'm explain ng the real mean
ing OF passages that are mistrunsated, or eX-
tracing sense from JargOn.
LITTLE KNOWN or HEBREW FORMERLY.
However well the tTaUslutOr1 Of kiuWJames
may have been ACQUAINTED with the Greek,
with modern scholarship. They knew al that
was known, perhaps, but Of Hebrew gram
mar they knew nOming. Construction was by
the light of nature; for the first Hebrew gram
mar was printed while their work was finish
ing. The wonder lis that their work was so
well nc as 10 was; that they so often caught
the spirit o., the prophet or psaimist where
they missed his words. But their blundeus
were enormous. I'm grammatical cOnstruc-
ton scarcely % verse was accurately rendered,
while words ana phrases We're 20 often mtsun-
de stood that revision was impossible and q
new translate was necessity.
The trans uturs ha1 the fixed Jewish text.
the MasOretlC ana q few trans.a .atiOns Of it in
TO other languages The most notable was
the lGrceN Septuagint, of which they had
were imperfect and corrupt They had the
Lutiu NulgaLe, which was very corrupt.
And they had the Iergums. One small He
brew Lexicon and grammar, published while
their work was in progress, was all the assist
anCe they could have from philOlOgists They
had no critical exegesis by Hebrew scholars;
nothing, i'm TACT, which modern student con-
siders Indispensable.
HELP Tbs REyIsERs HAVE HAD.
The rCv.sers have had hundred thousand
helps; OF the Septuaglnt they have had two
fOurth-CcHtury MSS-the AleEandrinus and
the SinaitiCus; they have had Jerome own
translation of the Old TGstamcnE the early
SYRIA C transatiOns; Arabic, EthiOpic Persian
tanslati, ms; contributions from all ages and
lands. But thousand times more important
B q an all these they have sound critical knOwl-
edge Of Hebrew; its slbteties of cOnstruc
ton; its phuOlOgy; etymOlOgy. For two cent
ur1es thousands Of scholars have been at
work upon it. AT least one life's work has
been put upon every verse of the Old Testa-
ment. The commentaries are numbered by
thousands transutiOns by hundreds.
Many of the changes that have been made
are familiar TO biolereaders Many arc
taught I'm church and Sunday-schOol, many
are new and Will gra harshly ON the ear
The child viii miss JOseDh5 " coat of many
cOl0rs ana will NOT ba CON, for.fr5 ,,.itL M
! "tuuic with long sleeves" (Ihe exact signih
. canCe of tine gilt might be better yet expressed
/ in the venaculur of to-day by g a lOnp-tBileC
/ cOat'D He viii hunt 10 vain for the first ref
/ erenCe 10 mules and for many a tribe 8HC
] person and place. The familiar heli0l has
vanished utterly and his sons are not Tho
/ Gammadims who hung their shields upon th,
] walls, have neither 10 AL hHbitatiOn nor
/ name left 10 them. MCtuCg-Amman has beer
/ blOtted from the map, and Huzlab from thJ
list of Queens Of Nneveh The artillery u
sam, XXX, 2O has been surrendered; tn,
| fats" no longer overflow; the book of Jashe
| Is not only out of print but closed forever ti
/ speculation. the vanity and sell-impOrtauct
| are taken from the htppOpotunusi the prid
and supercilousness from DaYid; the appar
I emily Impossible is shown TO be quite i'm uC
cordancs with the ordinary laws of nature.
UNIFORM SPELLING OF NAMES.
A uniform spelling has been adopted TO
proper namgs-bOh personal and geograpt
ic0l-Whlch will matCra ally assist the reade
and clear up the meaning of m ny passages
G8lza and Azla SidOn and Zion are the sam
places; that the Abba of one chapter and 10
Abiiuh of another; the Uriu of one and tn
Lulah of another; Euos and Enosh, JonathA
and JehOnatlan. JOIam and JehOram, CAR
an and kenon, HanoCh and HGuOCh, are th
same individuals; that the Fhuvuh of Gene
Sis, the Puah of Chronicles, and the Rlah @
Numbers were not three persons but onl
one The lshmeelte of the old Genesis an
Chronicles is the same as the lshmaelii
/ spoken of everywhere else aud the LebulOi
ite of Judges no longer differs from the Lebl
! lurito of Numbers.
Some proper names are marked down am
/ some common nouns are marked up RAJ
6aris and hah-meg Jer., IXNiN-, 81 Wero nj
men utomco5. Tho "Gammadims were n'
a tribe, but only warriors" Hazlab was nt
q Queen but declaration that the fate
| Niueveh "ls decided;' that "the temple shOu
/ melt away. eneth Num., NNiV,l I'D l5 not
man, but a "tumult" He did not 60 mp
balith 20 weep Qsa., Nv, p, bnt up % tl
blouse" The wheat of MOunth aud Pai
nag was not the wheat of two cOunule
FhnnaE was candy and lt was in wheat CO.
1ecuons honey oil and balsam that the era
On the contrary. "that was in jaw" Ju,
I NN.s Nal becomes "fnat was lu Lent. 'EOp
loua' becomes Ammon ,Nah,, ill., %. "lI