It has been a matter of common knowledge that the Bible has been a “best seller”—even though it is not as well read as its sales would lead one to hope. But the extraordinary demand for the New English New Testament has been so unexpected that the book itself is worthy of comment.
Letters in the press indicate that the great interest the new book has aroused is not always supported by an understanding of the nature of the problem which it attempts to solve.
Most people picture the New Testament as a book written in Greek and handed down from generation to generation, so that all we have to do is to translate the Greek into English.
The Originals
But this is not so. Jesus most certainly did not speak to his disciples in Greek, but in Aramaic (not ancient Hebrew, which was a dead language by then). There is a school of thought which suggests that the four gospels and Acts were written in Aramaic, and translated into Greek at an early date. Be that as it may, we should bear in mind that it is impossible to translate from one language to another and yet be sure you have retained the idiom of the language. (Some would quibble at a translation which said, “to and from” when the original said, “fro and to”.) Thus in the new version, “letter and stroke” is wisely substituted for “jot and tittle”, which is not properly understood by the average person.
From the originals many copies would be made and from these in turn further copies. In course of time the originals would become worn out and be lost.
Copies
In the process of copying, small errors would creep in. After 1,000 years, if one had been able to gather together a great number of copies one would be dismayed to find what a great number of different “readings” one had.
Who would know which was right ? From time to time various scholars have collected such manuscripts as they could, and published their own edition of the Greek New Testament. Even today, if you go to a shop to buy a copy of the Greek New Testament you will be offered the choice of different editors, and who can tell which is right ?
The King James Version
The publishers of the American Revised Standard Version in their preface (p. ix) point out that the King James Authorized Version was based upon the Greek edition of Beza, 1589, who closely followed that of Erasmus, 1516-1535, which was based upon a few relatively recent manuscripts, and (so the R.S.V. editors say) is now admitted to contain errors.
Recent Discoveries
We now possess many more ancient manuscripts, (say the R.S.V. editors) and are far better equipped to seek to recover the original wording of the Greek text”. Many of these have been discovered since 1930—some fragments going back to the second century A.D’ Further, there has been an amazing amount of Greek Papyri unearthed since the Revised Version was published in 1881, and we have a far better appreciation of the real meaning of the Greek words.
Biblical Greek
The New Testament—like the Septuagint two hundred years earlier—is not written in classic Greek, but in the vernacular, the language of the man in the street, and it is only within the last half century that many of the words and phrases have been properly understood. The idea that the Bible should be witten in a lofty awe-inspiring language like the Authorized Version has no scriptural precedent. As we have indicated, the New Testament was written in colloquial Greek, with plenty of bad grammar. It could be that those who add a “highbrow” tone to the Bible are transgressing the commandments of Rev. 22. 18—perhaps not.
Principles Of Translation
When the Jews were carried off to Babylon they forgot their Hebrew tongue and spoke the language of Babylon—Aramaic. In Neh. 8:7 we are told what happened when Ezra read the scriptures to them : they could not understand Hebrew, so he had to translate.
We read (R.S.V.) they “helped the people to understand the law . . . And they read from the book of the law of Cod, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading”.
Thus the scriptural principle is that a translation must be such that the people understand what they read,
Changed Language
Since 1611, the English language has changed and few people understand what they read of the Authorized Version.
I suggest that many brethren, who are confident that they understand what they read, really do not. The word “let” used to mean ‘to hinder”—it now Means the very opposite. “To communicate, forget not” does not mean, “Don’t forget to drop me a line”, but it means, “Share your possessions with others”. To “reprove” does not mean to “rebuke”, but to “re-prove”—that is, to convince again.
In John 1. 5, “comprehend” does not mean “understand”, but to surround or overcome ; it is “quench” in the N.E.V. : “conversation” means “conduct” ; “wealth” means “welfare” (old English “weal”) ; “careful” means “full of care”, that is, worrying ; to “mark people” does not mean to scratch them, but to take note of them. And so we go on. Hundreds of words have substantially changed their meaning. The word “seed” is no longer used to denote “posterity”. “Adversary” —a favourite Christadelphian word used to explain the meaning of “Satan”—is never used today. Should any brother or sister meet this word in any newspaper, book or magazine — other than a religious work—I would be interested to hear of it. In the New Bible, it is replaced by “opponent, Or enemy”.
Teaching Children
The language of King James is very difficult for children to follow. Indeed, the present new translation is the result of an agitation which began in Scotland over 13 years ago, when the difficulty of persuading children to read a book they could not understand made church leaders realize that a new translation was very much to be desired. Jesus said (Matt. 19. 14),
“Let the children come to me ; do not try to stop them ; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
It could be that the use of Old English in Sunday schools is in fact hindering their appreciation of the Scripture.
If Paul had been writing to us today would he have said, “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift” ? (Rom. 5. 15). Surely the new version is more like it : “But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrong doing”. Remember, as Ezra showed, the duty of the translator is not necessarily to give a literal translation, but to give the sense, and cause the people to understand.
Latin Words
The Authorized Version borrowed heavily from the Latin Vulgate, lifting Latin words out of it, giving them an English dressing, and so creating a kind of religious jargon, in which the new words were understood in the Roman Catholic setting instead of in their true sense as used by the apostles. Some of these words are : “saint” ; “serpent” (English, snake or adder) ; “virgin” (English, maiden) ; and in Isaiah, Lucifer (Venus, the planet).
“Virgin”, as used in the A.V. implies a medical condition which is not always necessarily fundamental to the narrative. The English word “maiden” is rarely used in the medical sense now, but it survives in such expressions as a “maiden over” in cricket. The word “girl” or “maid” (as in bridesmaid) often gives the true sense today.Incidentally, the strange use of the word in Rev. 14. 4, where men are most inappropriately described as “virgins” is corrected in the N.E.V.
The word “saint” today means a person canonized by the church, a sanctimonious person perhaps wearing a halo. This word does not occur in the New Version : it is usually “God’s people”, which certainly is far better. “Serpent” is a Latin word borrowed from the Latin Bible—and where it means a “snake” that is the word now used. Where it could mean some fabulous or doubtful sort of creature, “serpent” is retained,
“Calvary”—another Latin word, occurring in the A.V. in Luke 23. 33—is an erroneous replacement of the Hebrew (or rather Aramaic) name “Golgotha”. It is pleasing to note that this error is corrected in the N.E.V
Other Examples
Speaking of Hebrew, we have already pointed out that the Jews in New Testament days no longer spoke Hebrew, but Aramaic. The use of the word “Hebrew” in the A.V. is correctly replaced (when justified) in the N.E.V. by the phrase, “the Jewish language”, which of course covers both Hebrew and Aramaic, if need be.
One amendment, which the present writer considers to be an improvement, but others may differ, is the elimination of the word “broken” in I Cor. 11. 24 : “This is my body, broken for you”. The scripture specifically declares that his bones were not broken. The gospels in their account of the Last Supper make no suggestion that Jesus said his body was broken. In the R.S.V., doubt is thrown on the word, it being omitted in the text, but included in a foot note as a possibility’ The N.E.V. omits its altogether without comment (that is, no has footnote).
The first man, Adam, is no longer a living soul (1 Cor. 15. 45), but an animate being. The man who was -sick of the palsy and , grievously tormented” was “paralysed and racked with pain”. Minor details, such as “salt to the earth” instead of “salt of the earth”, are frequent. Many people think that the “salt of the earth” means the same as “the cream of the earth”. But salt is something added to make a thing palatable, not something skimmed off.
In John 21. 15-17, the A.V. fails to distinguish between the two Greek words meaning “love” and “friendship” (“agape and “phile”) and between the two words meaning to “feed” and to “tend”. This distinction between the last two words is made clear in the new translation ; and the difference between “loving” and being a “friend” is pointed out in the footnotes of the Library Edition.
We note with pleasure that the N.E.V. follows the R.V. (of 1881) in omitting the trinitarian passage of 1 John v. 7. Also how often we have read brethren being with- drawn from for “walking disorderly”—the recording brother not knowing that this refers to “idleness” ; as any modern trans lation (including the N.E.V.) will show. The essay on love in 1 Cor. 13 is delightful to read.
Not So Good
A translator’s duty is to reproduce what he thinks the speaker would have said, if he were here speaking to us today.
It is inevitable, therefore, that occasionally the translators’ theology will colour their understanding. We are disappointed to note that “Peter” and “Cephas” are both interpreted as meaning “rock”. However, the word rock is used in two senses. From Parkhurst and from Liddell and Scott, we learn that Cephas (not to be confused with the Greek word psephos, a pebble) is, as one would expect, a Hebroaramaic word.
The same root occurs in Job 30. 6 and Jer. 4. 29, where it has the sense of a boulder or large rock—something moveable, as distinct from tsur, often applied to God, as a firm, immoveable rock, such as the main mass of a mountain. From the same authorities, we learn that the Greek Petros is a stone or moveable rock—the same word translated Peter—whereas Petra—the rock on which Christ will build his church—means a firm immoveable rock.
Some comment has been made on the use of the phrase “the evil one” in the Lord’s Prayer. But this phrase does not prove that there is only one devil, any more than the frequent reference to the dead being in the grave proves that there was only one grave. We sometimes sing a hymn about all being in a -common tomb”, which, taken literally, is nonsense. In using the phrase -the evil one” in the Lord’s prayer, the translators agree with the Revised Version of 1881. It appears that there is sound documentary support for this rendering, and we should not criticise the translators for giving a conscientious translation, just because it does not fit our own ideas. There are many places where the translators have altered the wording in a manner which suits us better, they having faithfully translated the true meaning. I have heard no brethren criticising them for omitting John’s trinitarian passage, or for depriving Adam of his soul, as mentioned above.
More disappointing, however, is the alteration in Matt. 5. 37, where anything more than plain “Yes” or “No” is said to come from the devil, instead of “evil”, as in the A.V. However, even this can be tolerated when we remember that James points out that each is his own devil : “Temptation arises when a man is enticed and lured away by his own lust”.
Surprises
Some of the new translations come as a shock. The prodigal son “feels the pinch”, and the Roman soldiers, instead of saying, “Let us cast lots for it”, say, “Let us toss for it”. There are many such examples where brethren will feel the new translation loses in dignity. But, as the original Greek was utterly devoid of dignity—very crude at times—we must put ourselves in the translators’ place and ask ourselves, which translation most faithfully represents what the people concerned would have said, had they been speaking to us in English today.
The quality of the English of the new translation, reviewed by a panel of literary experts, is far superior to that of the original Greek.
Two Editions
The cheaper edition is intended for common use. The “Library Edition” is in larger type and contains copious footnotes giving alternative renderings.
One copy of the Library edition should be in the home of every Christadelphian.
In conclusion, the writer feels that the new Bible will be widely accepted—and once more the “common people” will “hear Him gladly” . It is the writer’s opinion that brethren should not hesitate to use this in public lectures, Sunday schools and generally, because it will not be long before it will be more widely read than the A.V. and Democracy certainly will be better understood.
Daniel was told that at the time of the end knowledge of the books would increase, and here we have one example, for which let us be thankful.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)