Omaha daily bee., 1920-03-14
A Business Mans Bible.

In 1908 successful English business man,
Ferrar Fenton, an importer and exporter of
commercial products finished a complete
translation of the Bible direct from the He
brew, Chaldee and Greek, from which the first
translations were made. He was . promising
scholar in those three languages before he en-
tered business life, whose parents wished him
to become clergyman.
Mr.. Fenton worked without consulting the
stately King James version, his desire being to
accomplish an absolutely independent text, in
telligible to all readers of England-an ambi-
ton which, by the way, had been in his thought
during all his fifty years as merchant. He
has called his work "The Complete Bible in
Modern English" and copy of it, printed in
London in 1906 lies before US. 1t is pleasure to
state that various portions of it have been
read by minister of our acquaintance to his
congregations, and have invariably been re-
ceived with close attention and great interest.
We shall quote extracts from several parts
of this text first from the story Of the creation,
and suggest comparisons with the King James
version by our readers:
BY Periods God created that which pro-
duced the Solar Systems; then that which
produced the Earth. But the Earth was un-
organized and empty: and darkness covered
its convulsed surface; while the breath of
God rocked the surface Of its waters.
God then said, LET there be light;" and
light came. And God gazed upon that beau
tful light; and God divided the light from the
darkness. And to the light God gave the
name of Day, and to the darkness He gave
the name of Night. This was the close and
the dawn of the first age.
From the Psalms we quote the first stanza of
the Hst:
Lord. have trusted in You,
l shall not be depressed;
In Your goodness relieve me and guard,
Bend to me Your ear and assist
And be my strong fort Of retreat,
To victory You always have led
For You are my crag, and my rock.
From famous passage in Proverbs the
following is selected:
To me these three are wonder;
And fourth understand not;
The path OF an eagle in air;
The road Of snake on rock;
The course of ship through the sea;
And the power of the man over woman;
And the way of faithiess wife.
When she wipes her mouth and exclaims,
Il have not committed a sin!'
The conclusion of the first chapter of
Ecclesastes (Mr. Fenton calls it the first lee
ture) is concluded as follows:
So said to my heart--and said to myself
Il have enlarged and extended science beyond
all who were before me in jerusalem; and
my mind has examined the result of Science
and Knowledge; also gave my mind to the
investigation Of Science, and the investiga-
ton OF Madness and Folly. l learnt that
their pursuit was feeding on wind !--Science
is great grief; and whoever increases
knowledge increases sorrow!
In the passage in St. Matthew in which
Peter protested his loyalty to Christ the Fenton
translation runs:
Peter, however, replying TO Him, said, "If
all are ashamed of You, I will never be
ashamed"
Il tell you indeed" said Jesus, in reply to
him, "that in this very night, before bugle
sounds, you will thrice deny Mel"
This oft-quoted verse, four words of which
in the commonly used version are translated
before the cock crow" are changed to Before
a bugle sounds" because the Roman bugle was
called "the cock" or "the GROWER" and refer
ence to it and not the fowl, was made in the
original