Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1915-07-15
BIBLICAL TRANSLATION.
Editor News:

Editor News:
Even If we were sure that the New
Testament. as found in the Greek cop
les now extant, contains the exact
words of the inspired writers, it
would, in the Greek, be unavailable
for the vast majority of people. Prac-
tically everybody has to rely upon a
translation. The knowledge of Greek
obtained in high school course or in
the ordinary one horse college, as
things are now, is negligible as far as
! giving one aD authoritative knowledge
of Scripture is concerned. In this as
| in some other circumstances, a lit
tie learning is dangerous thing But
if one is an accomplished Greek schol-
ar his knowledge. however profitable
it may be to himself, is of no special
value to those who do not understand
Greek because the moment he begins
to..impart to them his knowledge Of
the Scripture derived from his super
ior knowledge of the original Ian
guage, that moment it sinks to the
level a translation.
The fact that mostly everybody has
to rely upon translations for his know
ledge of Scripture presents new lot
of difficulties How can you be sure
the translation is.correct? If the trans
lator were ignorant of the languages
would be not. however honest he
might be, give a false translation :
Or he might have religious bias
which would make him mistranslate
passages to support his private beliefs.
But Bible with a number of mistak-
en- tianslations would teach error in
stead of the truth of Christ. There
is absolutely no getting around it.
Just as soon as you accept transla-
tion you are putting your faith in
the man who made it. You are TAX
ing bis word, which may be the word
of God or may not A moments s
thought will show anyone that this is
the case.
There are many things which make
translation difficult. / cannot go into
the subject at length. Let few ex-
amples suffice. Often word in one
language will have no exact equival-
ent in another. A considerable change
or even a shade of change in the
meaning of one or more of it's words
will often completely change the
meaning of sentence. 1dioms If
translated literally are often quite
meaningless. Their meaning can be
known ordinarily only by usage. II
the usage is lost the meaning is usual
ly lost Words in dialect may sig
nifty something quite different from
their classical I Specification. The
meaning of words written two thous-
and years may be forgotten or only
guessed at. As passage becomes
mora sublime. translation usually be-
comes more difficult. All these are but
few of the many things which go to
make translation difficult, and they all
apply to translation of the New Testa
ment.
The Catholics therefore ask what
guarantee anyone can have who has
nothing but a modern translation of
the New Testament to rely upon, that
he has truly the word and teaching of
Christ In the translation he has moth
ing but the authority of men, men
who be insists are fallible and not au-
thorized to translate the word of God.
And most people have nothing but a
translation As this article is long, l
shall have to wait till later time to
treat in detail of Scripture transla-
tions
"Uncle Tom," you ask nv views
on these questions Catholics bring up.
Solutions have been attempted, but l
have never yet found one that would
bear scrutiny. They are all hopelessly
inconsistent or inadequate. I can see
no solution but to accent the veracity
of the Catholic Church. Many Protes-
tants do this-most inconsistently, as
it is complete surrender into the
hands of the Catholics. But the only
alternative is surrender of logic and
reason and history, and to accept with
blind faith the word of unauthorized
men.
If any Catholics see what you have