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would make them all heretics, and that rebellion against the civil government would be the consequence of every man's reading the word of God for himself. And so excessive was their hatred, that they committed Tyndal's books to the flames, and soon after procured the death of this great man. The malice and cruelty of these popish persecutors against the cause which Tyndal had so nobly and so well supported, were vain. They could not extinguish the light which he had kindled. Other competent men came forward, to put a finishing hand to Tyndal's undertaking. Tyndal had resolved on translating the whole Bible, and in the execution of his design had proceeded to the end of Nehemiah. Miles Coverdale and John Rogers had been coadjutors with him, and these two persons proceeded separately with the work till it was completed Coverdale published an edition of the whole Bible, at Zurich, in 1535, which was the first printed Bible in the English language, and is known by the name of its editor. Rogers also completed the translation which Tyndal had begun, and an edition of 1500 copies was printed in 1537, at Hamburgh, by Grafton and Whitechurch. This was called Matthews's Bible; a feigned name being affixed to the title-page instead of Tyndal's, from the apprehension that, as he had been put to death as a heretic, his name might prejudice the public against the work. The subsequent English Bibles-the "Great Bible," in 1539-"Cranmer's Bible," in 1540-the "Geneva Gible," in 1557—the "Bishop's Bible," in 1568, and the present public version, first printed in 1611, were only so many several revisions of Tyndal's Bible. King James's translators were expressly ordered to follow the Bishop's Bible, which they were to alter as little as the original necessarily demanded; and they were to use the translations of Tyndal, Matthews, Coverdale, Whitechurch, and the Geneva, when they came closer to the original than the Bishop's Bible. To represent the present public version as an entirely new translation, is to state what is contrary to the historical fact. It is only a revised impression of a former version, and therefore, instead of supplying reasons against a new translation, or a new revision, it is actually a precedent in favour of the latter.

Between the years 1535, the date of the original publication of the English Bible, and 1611, the date of the last revision, an interval of seventy-four years elapsed, in the course of which the public version of the scriptures had been revised at least five times. Since 1611, when the present common version was first put into circulation, a period of no fewer than two hundred and five years has elapsed, during the whole of which, to the present moment, no revision of the English common Bible has been attempted.

To what cause is this to be attributed? Were our ancestors more solicitous to possess a correct translation of the divine word than their descendants? Or was the revision ordered by James I.

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so accurately executed, as to attain at once the standard of perfection; and thus to supersede all farther attempts at amendment? The affirmative of the first question might justly cover us with shame; and to assign the perfection of the common version as a reason for not revising or translating the sacred scriptures de novo, would be absolute folly. Had the present version, at the time when it was first circulated, been an exact representation of the Hebrew and Greek originals, which it certainly was not, there would still be reasons for a revision of it, which no objections could invalidate. But, as in addition to circumstances on which those reasons are grounded, there are others which regard the fidelity of the version itself, we are furnished with unanswerable reasons for maintaining the necessity of a revision of the English Bible, which would seem to be a more satisfactory proceeding than an entirely new translation.

It is a well known and undeniable fact, that the learned men who made the revision in 1611, were not supplied with materials so ample and efficient for amending the translation as those which are now in our power. Learning has not been slumbering for the last two hundred years. Light sprung up during that long period, and it penetrated and has dissipated the darkness which obscured those of earlier times. Advances have been made in philology and criticism. The "publication of Polyglots, of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of ancient and modern versions, of lexicons, concordances, critical dissertations and sermons; books of eastern travels; disquisitions on the geography, customs, and natural history of the east; accurate tables of chronology, coins, weights, and measures," have contributed essentially toward the Improvement and elucidation of the Bible. What powerful aid has been afforded for the better understanding of the Hebrew and Greek originals, by the labours of Walton, Castell, Mill, Wetstein, Griesbach, Michaelis, Bochart, Lightfoot, Grotius, Poole, and many other illustrious writers! It must be evident, therefore, to all intelligent and unprejudiced men, that the early part of the seventeenth century was in all respects less favourable than the present time, for the publication of a correct edition of the English Bible.

Strongly rooted prejudices exist, there is too much reason to fear, in the minds of many, against an amendment of the public version. The very circumstance of there having been no revision of the common translation for upwards of two centuries, has contributed in no inconsiderable degree to cherish and augment those prejudices. Had the public version been repeatedly and recently revised, had every new impression contained corrections and improvements of preceding impressions, and the alterations which the growing advantages of succeeding years might have required, been regularly made, the public attention would have been so repeatedly fixed upon the subject, that no alarm would have

been felt, nor any objection have arisen against the measure of revision. No evil consequences followed the repeated revisions of the English Bible in the sixteenth century. The amended version of 1611 produced no unpleasant effects; and there is not the smallest occasion to fear that, in a more enlightened age, a corrected publication of the scriptures would be attended with any other than beneficial results.

The ministers of the established church, it should seem, virtually pledge themselves to the revision of the common version, since the assent which is required from them to all and every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, binds them to an approval of a version of a part of the Bible, different from the common translation. They read in their churches passages as the word of God, which their hearers, on looking into their common Bibles, cannot find but in a sense very different from that which was read to them from the desk. The translation of the Psalms, as inserted in the Book of Common Prayer, varies essentially from the Bible translation. If the former gives the true meaning of the divine word, the latter cannot, in those several cases in which discrepancies exist. The approbation of the one version necessarily implies the condemnation of the other. No clergyman, surely, would inform an inquirer, that the Psalter is the word of God, but that the Psalms in the Bible translation are not the word of God; nor, vice versa, that the Bible translation of the Psalms is the true word of God, but that the Psalter is not. He must reply, that the differences between the two versions are occasioned by errors in the translation of one or both of them. This is the only proper answer which he could give, and it would surely be immediately remarked by the inquirer, and admitted by the other party, that the errors of translation ought to be cor rected. If the Psalter be correct, let the Bible translation be ⚫ made conformable with it; or if the former be erroneous, let it be amended by means of the latter. It is impossible for the same persons to maintain that the same passages in the original can convey two very different senses in a correct translation. As the assent of the clergy to the Book of Common Prayer includes the approval of the sense, as given in the Psalter version, they, to be consistent, must plead for a revision of the Bible; at least for the revision of a part of it: and, as no good reason can be assigned for reading the same passages of the Bible in a different sense in the service of any church, the following discrepancies supply an unanswerable argument for revising the public version.

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Mr. Boothroyd's publication is divided into nine sections. In the first is given a short account of the ancient, and of the English versions of the holy scriptures. The second contains the opinions of some distinguished divines and critics on the authorized version, intended to show that it admits of improvement; those of Doddridge, Durell, bishow Lowth, Blaney, Symonds, · and Blackwall, are inserted in this section: the opinions of archbishop Newcome, and the present bishop of Landaff (Dr. Marsh), occur in other parts of the work. The following sections comprise the reasons which the author assigns for his attempting a new translation.

The first reason assigned by the author, for the present attempt to improve the public version of the scriptures, is the imperfect and erroneous state of the Hebrew and Greek texts from which the common translation was made. Owing to this cause, the beauty and symmetry of the sacred writings are often injured; contradictions which no ingenuity has been able to reconcile, have been introduced; and omissions and interpolations are numerous in the common version. Each of these particulars is accompanied with appropriate examples.

"No approximation," Mr. Boothroyd remarks, "can be made towards a perfect version of the Hebrew Scriptures, unless the translator be allowed to supply the acknowledged deficiencies, and correct the manifest errors of the original texts, by the aid of manuscripts, the ancient versions, and the rules of sound and temperate criticism. With what success this method has been adopted by Dr. Lowth in his improved version of Isaiah, by Dr. Blaney in his version of Jeremiah, and by Archbishop Newcome in his version of the minor prophets, the learned are generally agreed; and the same judicious method pursued in reference to the whole scriptures, cannot fail to be attended with a similar result."

Conjectural emendation is one of the means of removing the errors of the original text, which the author proposes to employ: a desperate remedy, and one which, we trust, will be used with extreme caution in the proposed translation. It is, we allow, highly probable, that neither existing manuscripts, nor versions, have preserved in their primitive state the whole of the readings of the Hebrew Bible and Greek Testament; and that manuscripts which have perished with the wrecks of time, might contain original lections: conjecture, therefore, may possibly supply what is wanting to correct the errors of a passage. Its use, however, has in the present age been by far too common. It affords the opportunity of displaying ingenuity, which many authors have been extremely ready to seize; adopting, on almost every occasion of embarrassment, the suggestions of their own fancy, as the means of clearing difficulties which better learning or more patient examination may assist to remove. On this subject, we agree in opinion with bishop Marsh, that it is better to declare at once that the Hebrew text requires no emendation, than submit the Bible to the critical licentiousness of authors and editors, who correct without control. In numerous cases difficulties have been supposed to exist, scarcely for any other purpose than that of displaying critical dexterity. In profane authors this is comparatively of slight importance, and we may with little hazard applaud and adopt the conjectural emendations of Porson, in a tragedy of Euripides: but where all is sacred, as in the scriptures, we are unwilling to admit conjecture as our guide to its true readings; never receiving a letter or a word through this medium, till every other method of explanation has been tried; and even then we are reluctant to admit conjectural emendations, since it is at least doubtful, in our judgment, whether the obscurities of the Bible might not better be suffered to remain, than its sense be endangered by the presumptuous corrections of human fancy. Many writers and translators in modern times would have "conjectured less, had they known more." We cannot but hope that we shall find in Mr. Boothroyd a praise-worthy exception to a prevailing practice, and that conjecture will, in his hands, be invariably under the direction of the most severe critical judgment.

In the fourth section, Mr. Boothroyd assigns a second reason for attempting an improved version-the great and essential improvement in respect to propriety of language and grammatical accuracy. This is the longest section in the pamphlet, and it must be granted by all competent judges, that on this part of the subject there is very ample scope for enlargement. It cannot be pretended that our language has received no improvement for the last two hundred years, or that the meaning of words has remained unchanged. If therefore the common version had been ever so unexceptionable at the period when it was made, unless it be accommodated by the requisite alterations to the present improv

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