|
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH
Other articles have outlined
the history of the manuscript sources of the Bible, which as actual
documents go back as far as the second century BC for the Old Testament and
the early second century AD for the New Testament. No other book from
antiquity has anything like this wealth of written sources, it confirms very
fully that the text we now have is a faithful and accurate reproduction of
what the prophets and apostles originally wrote.
The good hand of God has ensured the
preservation of all this evidence, and that hand may also be seen in three
historical events of the Middle Ages which materially promoted the
translation of the Bible into the everyday language of the common people in
England and Western Europe. These were:
- The fall of Constantinople in
1453, which led to the revival of learning in the West, and especially (in
this context) to the spread of knowledge of Greek and Hebrew amongst
scholars.
- The invention of printing about
the same time, by which books could be produced in multiple copies without
the slow and labourious effort of hand copying with its inevitable risk of
copyists errors.
- The Reformation, which gave an
enormous impetus towards the goal of translating both Testaments, so that
ordinary people could compare what was spoken from the pulpit, with the
inspired word of God.
Besides the English versions which are a
notable feature of this period, Luther's German translation was published in
1522-34 and the first French versions in 1534-45; Spanish, Italian and Czech
versions appeared some 70 years later.
 THE
EARLIEST VERSIONS
Certain translations of the Old Testament
had, of course, been made centuries earlier, especially the Aramaic 'Targums'
and the Greek 'Septuagint'; these were produced, to serve the Jewish
communities in Palestine and in the dispersion respectively, for the large
number of ordinary Jews who no longer spoke Hebrew. As Christianity spread,
the need arose for versions in Syriac, Latin, Coptic and other languages in
lands around the Mediterranean where apostolic teaching had penetrated.
Notable among these was the Latin tongue, and with the growing supremacy of
the Roman bishops it became - in Jerome's 'Vulgate' translation - the
'official' version throughout the Holy Roman Empire for over a millennium.
However, after centuries of copying and recopying, the text of the Vulgate
became very inaccurate, and although Latin remained the language of the
Roman Catholic liturgy, it was meaningless to the common people when they
heard it read in church. Such was the situation in the second half of the
fourteenth century when the first complete Bible in English was published,
the work of John Wycliffe and his followers.
THE
BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE
 There
had indeed been earlier translations of small portions of the Bible into Old
English (ie Anglo-Saxon), eg by King Alfred, but none of these has survived.
Some of the earliest specimens are 'glosses' - interlinear insertions in
copies of the Latin Psalter and Gospels. Wycliffe stands out as a man who
acknowledged the sole authority of the Bible in matters of faith and
practice, and he wished to give everyone access to the written Word of God.
Unfortunately, because he did not know Hebrew or Greek, he had to work from
the Latin Bible, with all its accumulated faults. His earlier edition,
produced between 1380 and 1384, is extremely literal and 'word-for-word'
with the Latin. A later Wycliffe version, believed to be the work of John
Purvey, shows much more feeling for English idiom; it held the field until
Tyndale's translation appeared, although it was strongly condemned by the
ecclesiastical authorities, who imposed severe penalties on anyone caught
circulating it.
THE
WORK OF TYNDALE
 The
'father' of the English Bible was William Tyndale. Filled with the same zeal
as Wycliffe to put the Scriptures within reach of all, he nevertheless found
it impossible to fulfil his purpose in England. He left for Hamburg in 1524
and in little over a year produced his first translation direct from Erasmus
edition of the Greek New Testament. Several revisions followed up to 1534,
together with portions of the Old Testament (direct from Hebrew) on which he
was engaged until his death at the stake in Belgium two years later.
 Tyndale's
revised New Testament of 1534 has formed the basis of all subsequent
revisions down to the Revised Standard Version of 1946. Nine tenths of
Tyndale's language survives in the Authorised Version. and such changes as
were later introduced (eg 'charity' for 'love', 'church' for 'congregation'
) are arguably for the worse.
In the years which followed Tyndale's death
a number of translations based on his work were produced, including
Coverdale's Bible (1535), Matthew's Bible (1537), the Great Bible (1539),
the Geneva Bible (1560) and the Bishops' Bible (1568). These last two were
Calvinistic and Anglican respectively, and it was partly to heal the breach
between these opposing parties that the idea of a new translation received
the support of King James. The labours of four years resulted in the birth
of the Authorised Version in 1611. It gradually won general approval over
its main rival, the Geneva Bible, and reigned supreme for the next 250
years. Its beautiful and lofty English has become part and parcel of our
literary heritage, and its influence on the lives of millions has been
incalculable.
However, spoken language slowly but surely
changes over the centuries and much of the wording and structure of the
Authorised Version is archaic, if not alien, to English speakers of today
unless they have been in close contact with it over many years. Further, its
translators chose to render a large number of the original words in diverse
ways in English, even with a confined context, thus effectively obscuring
lines of reasoning plain enough in the Hebrew or Greek. [For example,
compare 2Corinthians 3.18 and 4. 3 in the Authorised and Revised Versions,
where the
 analogy
of a veil runs through Paul's reasoning.]
In the latter half of the nineteenth
century the study of the Greek Bible received a great impetus with the
discovery and subsequent publication of several ancient codices such as the
Coder Sinaiticus and the Coder Vaticanus. As a result, and in view of the
defects of the Authorised Version just mentioned, a Revision Committee was
set up in 1870,and produced the Revised Version of the New and Old
Testaments in 1881 and 1885 respectively. The revision was undertaken in
conjunction with an American committee, and a similar volume, known as the
American Standard Version. incorporating their preferred renderings (they
were less hidebound than their English colleagues) was published in 1901.
THE
REVISED VERSION
The Revised Version of 1885 (or its
American counterpart) is probably the most reliable of all official versions
for the general reader. It is the most consistent in its translation, and is
closest in its adherence to what prophet and apostle actually wrote. Most of
its editions, like those of subsequent translations, are properly
paragraphed, and the fragmentation of verse division has been kept to a
minimum. The archaic language of the Authorised Version was not changed,
however, except where the Rev ision Committee felt that a word had become
completely obsolete.
Unfortunately the Revised Version was not
received with much enthusiasm, mainly because it changed many well known and
popular passages to more accurate or consistent, but less elegant,
renderings, Over the next half century a number of private translators
endeavoured to fill the gap - Darby, Rotherham, Weymouth, Moffatt, and
others. During the same period further progress in Bible archaeology and
languages, together with the more keenly felt archaisms of both Authorised
and Revised Versions, induced scholars on both sides of the Atlantic to
contemplate new translations. In America the National Council of Churches
set up a committee in 1937 for a further revision of the American Standard
Version, and the Revised Standard Version New Testament duly appeared in
1946, The Old Testament, published in 1952, included a few of the
alternative readings of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Revised Standard Version has proved
very popular for the general reader because of its dignified yet
substantially current English, although it is not as consistent in its
translation as the older Revised Version. In the Old Testament it adapts a
good many readings of the Septuagint, Syriac and other ancient versions in
preference to those of the traditional (Masoretic) Hebrew text and some of
these may well be justified. What is less satisfactory is the not infrequent
resort to corrections of the Hebrew text without manuscript authority; these
ought rather to be called 'conjectures', and they detract from what
otherwise would be a very acceptable version,
There is no inbuilt incompatibility between
the use of modern literary English and faithfulness in translation. This is
demonstrated by the New Jewish Version of the Old Testament based on the
traditional Hebrew text, which the Jewish Publication Society of America
issued in one volume in 1985. In a smaller area E. V. Rieu's translation of
the four gospels (in the Penguin Classics) achieves the same success. But
when the more recent versions of the whole Bible are studied, viz, the
Jerusalem Bible (1966) and the New English Bible (1970) the indisputable
modernity of the language is unfortunately offset by a 'reconstruction' of
the text in various passages of the Old Testament. Another regrettable
feature is the transposition of lines, verses and even groups of verses on a
purely subjective basis (following the lead of Moffatt fifty years
previously). For example, in the New English Bible, Isaiah chapter 5. 24, 25
is inserted between verses 4 and 5 of chapter 10; Job chapter 41.1-6 appears
after chapter 39.30; there is no manuscript evidence whatever for
introducing such changes. One has therefore to read the Old Testament
portions of these new translations with a great deal of caution. and
preferably with the Revised Version (or American Standard Version) at hand
to check doubtful renderings.
THE
GOOD NEWS BIBLE
Another version which has become very
popular in recent years is the Good News Bible which, in its New Testament
section, first appeared as Today's English Version in 1966. It is a Bible
Society publication, and there are similar up-to-date versions in French (Bonnes
Nouvelles Aujourd'hui). German (Die Gute Nachricht) and other languages. The
translators' aim in each case was to produce a simple text, avoiding as far
as possible stereotyped religious language, and using paraphrases whenever
the original was repetitive or unclear to the lay reader. An unfortunate
result of this latter policy has been the loss on occasions of important
detail. [ For example, in Luke 1. 32, when the angel told Mary about the son
she would bear: "the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father
David", the Good News Bible reads: 'The Lord God will make him a king, as
his ancestor David was'. This falls short of the angel's specific promise
and its Old Testament foundations, eg in Isaiah 9. 7, Jeremiah 33. 17-20;
Psalm 89. 3, 4.]
Of course, for well over a century now the
various Bible Societies have been promoting the translation of the
Scriptures into more and more of the world's great variety of languages.
These range from the eleven major tongues of India, each with their many
millions of speakers, to small and isolated pockets in Africa and South
America, some with only a few hundred speaking a common language. For many
peoples, however, it is not a question of lack of translation but rather of
access to the printed word, whether through illiteracy or political and
religious factors.
THE
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
Finally, in 1978 another major translation,
the New International Version, was published in the USA by the New York
International Bible Society and in Britain the following year. It is in
general a very attractive production in contemporary yet dignified English.
There is, however. in the New Testament a strong Trinitarian bias which the
reader needs to watch for.
What version, then, should the serious
reader rely on? For general reading the Revised Standard Version and the New
International Version have much to commend them. For serious study, however,
one must still resort to the Revised Version or the American Standard
Version, or to one or more of the older private' versions such as
Rotherham's 'Emphasized Bible' or J. N. Darby's 'New Translation', which
were painstakingly produced by men with a wholesome respect for the written
text. By using our discrimination in this way, God's revelation to man can
be learned and appreciated in all its beauty, and His will understood and
applied in our daily lives.
It should be stressed,
however, that knowledge of the 'first principles' of Bible truth, which are
essential to salvation, can be learned from virtually any translation. These
first principles are repeated, emphasised and illustrated so frequently
throughout the Bible that the conscientious reader cannot fail to take note
of them.
|
