NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that the Revised Version of the Old and the New Testament has come into the field since the learned and lamented author first issued his Literal Translation of the Bible, the demand for it from year to year has continued remarkably steady. This indicates that it still fills a place of its own among helps to the earnest student of Holy Scripture. In 1887 Dr Young issued a Revised Edition, of which two impressions are exhausted. The work has been subjected to a fresh revision, making no alteration on the principles on which the Translation proceeds, but endeavouring to make it as nearly perfect in point of accuracy on its present lines as possible. The Publishers accordingly issue this new Revised Edition in the hope that earnest students of the Bible, by attaining to a clearer apprehension of the meaning of the inspired writer, may more clearly and fully apprehend the mind of the Spirit by whom all Holy Scripture has been given to us.
Edinburgh, January 1898.
ISBN: 0-8010-9910-2
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
THE following Translation of the New Testament is based upon the belief that every word of the original is "God-breathed," as the Apostle Paul says in his Second Epistle to Timothy, chap. 3:16. That language is, indeed, applicable, in the first place, only to the Writings of the "Old Testament," in which Timothy had been instructed, but as the Apostle Peter, in his Second Epistle, chap. 3:15,16, expressly ranks the "Epistles" of his beloved brother Paul along with "the other Scriptures," as the "Gospels" and the "Acts" of the Apostles were undoubtedly written before the date of Peter's writing, by men to whom the Saviour promised and gave the Holy Spirit, to guide them to all truth, to teach them all things, and to remind them of all things that Jesus said and did, there can be no reasonable ground for denying the inspiration of the New Testament by any one who holds that of the Old, or who is willing to take the plain unsophisticated meaning of God's Word regarding either.
This inspiration extends only to the original text, as it came from the pens of the writers, not to any translations ever made by man, however aged, venerable, or good; and only in so far as any of these adhere to the original--neither adding to nor omitting from it one particle--are they of any real value, for, to the extent that they vary from the original, the doctrine of verbal inspiration is lost, so far as that version is concerned.
If a translation gives a present tense when the original gives a past, or a past when it has a present; a perfect for a future, or a future for a perfect; an a for a the, or a the for an a; an imperative for a subjunctive, or a subjunctive for an imperative; a verb for a noun, or a noun for a verb, it is clear that verbal inspiration is as much overlooked as if it had no existence. THE WORD OF GOD IS MADE VOID BY THE TRADITIONS OF MEN.
A strictly literal rendering may not be so pleasant to the ear as one where the apparent sense is chiefly aimed at, yet it is not euphony but truth that ought to be sought, and where in such a version as the one commonly in use in this country, there are scarcely two consecutive verses where there is not some departure from the original such as those indicated, and where these variations may be counted by tens of thousands, as admitted on all hands, it is difficult to see how verbal inspiration can be of the least practical use to those who depend upon that version alone.
Modern scholarship is beginning to be alive to the inconsistency of thus gratuitously obscuring, and really changing, the meaning, of the sacred writers by subjective notions of what they ought to have written, rather than what they did write, for if we admit that in a single case it can be lawful to render a past tense by a present, where shall we end? who is to be judge? if we do so in one passage, to bring out what may appear to us might, could, would, or should, be the Scriptural meaning, we cannot deny the same privilege to others who may twist other passages in like manner. The alteration of an a for a the may appear a small matter not worth speaking of, but an attentive comparison of the following Translation with the common one will discover numerous passages where the entire force of the verse depends upon the insertion or non-insertion of the article.
For example, in Matthew 2:4, Herod is represented as enquiring "where Christ ' should be born. But "Christ" is the surname of the man Jesus, who was quite unknown to Herod, who could not consequently ask for a person of whose existence he was ignorant. The true explanation is, that King James' Translators omitted the definite article which occurs in the original. The correct translation is, where "the Christ" should be born. Herod knew of "the Christ," the Messiah, the long promised Saviour and King of the Jews, and his enquiry was, where He was to be born, whose kingdom was to be over all. The simple article clears up the whole. There are about two thousand instances in the New Testament where these translators have thus omitted all notice of the definite article, not to say any thing of the great number of passages where they have inserted it, though not in the original.
The following translation need not, and ought not, to be considered, in any sense, as coming into competition with the Common Version, but as one to be used in connection with it, and as auxiliary to it; and not a few assurances have been received from clergymen and others that they thus use it, and find it at once interesting and profitable. The change of a single word, or collocation of words, is often found to throw an entirely new shade of meaning over the Scripture. This advantage is well known to all who have compared the various ancient versions, or even the English versions that successively formed what was popularly called "the authorized version," i.e., Tyndale, Coverdale, Geneva, Bishops, &c.
The Greek Text followed is that generally recognized as the "Received Text," not because it is thought perfect, but because the department of Translation is quite distinct from that of Textual Criticism, and few are qualified for both. If the original text be altered by a translator, (except he give his reasons for and against each emendation,) the reader is left in uncertainty whether the translation given is to be considered as that of the old or of the new reading. And, after all, the differences in sense to be found in the 100,000 various Greek readings are so trifling compared with those to be derived from an exact translation of the Received Text, that the writer willingly leaves them to other hands; at the same time, it is contemplated, in a future edition, to give, in an Appendix, all the various readings of the Greek MSS. that are capable of being expressed in English.
With grateful thanks to the Father of Lights, this revised edition is presented to the friends of Divine Truth, with the hope that it may be a means, in the hands of the Divine Spirit, of quickening their faith, and encouraging their hearts, in the work of the Lord.
R.Y.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
THE WORK, in its present form, is not to be considered as intended to come into competition with the ordinary use of the commonly received English Version of the Holy Scriptures, but simply as a strictly literal and idiomatic rendering of the Original Hebrew and Greek Texts. For about twenty years--fully half his life-time--the Translator has had a desire to execute such a work, and has been engaged in Biblical pursuits tending to this end more or less exclusively; and now, at last, in the good providence of God, the desire has been accomplished. How far he has been able to carry out the just principles of Biblical Translation, founded on a solid and immoveable foundation, time alone will tell, and for this he confidently waits. As these principles are to some extent new, and adhered to with a severity never hitherto attempted, and as the Translator has perfect confidence in their accuracy and simplicity, he proceeds at once to state them distinctly and broadly, that not merely the learned, but the wayfaring man need not err in appreciating their value.
There are two modes of translation which may be adopted in rendering into our own language the writings of an ancient author; the one is, to bring him before us in such a manner as that we may regard him as our own; the other, to transport ourselves, on the contrary, over to him, adopting his situation, modes of speaking, thinking, acting,--peculiarities of age and race, air, gesture, voice, &c. Each of these plans has its advantages, but the latter is incomparably the better of the two, being suited--not for the ever-varying modes of thinking and acting of the men of the fifth, or the tenth, or the fifteenth, or some other century, but--for all ages alike. All attempts to make Moses or Paul act, or speak, or reason, as if they were Englishmen of the nineteenth century, must inevitably tend to change the translator into a paraphrast or a commentator, characters which, however useful, stand altogether apart from that of him, who, with a work before him in one language, seeks only to transfer it into another.
In prosecuting the plan thus adopted, a literal translation was indispensable. No other kind of rendering could place the reader in the position contemplated, side by side with the writer--prepared to think as he does, to see as he sees, to reason, to feel, to weep, and to exult along with him. His very conception of time, even in the minor accidents of the grammatical past, present, future, are to become our own. If he speaks of an event, as now passing, we are not, on the logical ground of its having in reality already transpired, to translate his present as if it were a past; or if, on the other hand, his imagination pictures the future as if even at this moment present, we are not translators but expounders, and that of a tame description, if we take the liberty to convert his time, and tense--the grammatical expression of his time--into our own. King James' translators were almost entirely unacquainted with the two distinctive peculiarities of the Hebrew mode of thinking and speaking, admitted by the most profound Hebrew scholars in theory, though, from undue timidity, never carried out in practice, viz:--
I. That the Hebrews were in the habit of using the past tense to express the certainty of an action taking place, even though the action might not really be performed for some time. And II. That the Hebrews, in referring to events which might be either past or future were accustomed to act on the principle of transferring themselves mentally to the period and place of the events themselves, and were not content with coldly viewing them as those of a bygone or still coming time; hence the very frequent use of the present tense.
These two great principles of the Hebrew language are substantially to be found in the works of Lee, Gesenius, Ewald, &c.; but the present writer has carried them out in translation much beyond what any of these ever contemplated, on the simple ground that, if they are true, they ought to be gone through with. While they affect very considerably the outward form of the translation, it is a matter of thankfulness that they do not touch the truth of a single Scripture doctrine--not even one.
Every effort has been made to secure a comparative degree of uniformity in rendering the original words and phrases. Thus, for example, the Hebrew verb nathan, which is rendered by King James' translators in sixty-seven different ways (see in the subsequent page, entitled 'Lax Renderings,') has been restricted and reduced to ten, and so with many others. It is the Translator's ever-growing conviction, that even this smaller number may be reduced still further.
It has been no part of the Translator's plan to attempt to form a New Hebrew or Greek Text--he has therefore somewhat rigidly adhered to the received ones. Where he has differed, it is generally in reference to the punctuation and accentuation, the division of words and sentences, which, being merely traditional, are, of course, often imperfect. For an explanation and vindication of these differences, the reader is referred to the "Concise Commentary," which is designed to supplement the present volume.
The Translator has often had occasion to regret the want of a marginal column to insert the various renderings of passages where he has been unable to satisfy his own mind--he has, however, cast the chief of these into an appendix, under the title, "Additions and Corrections." and still more elaborately in the supplementary volume.
EDINBURGH, 10th Sept. 1862
Style of the Sacred Writers, and of this Translation.
ONE of the first things that is likely to attract the attention of the Readers of this New Translation is its lively, picturesque, dramatic style, by which the inimitable beauty of the Original Text is more vividly brought out than by any previous Translation. It is true that the Revisers appointed by King James have occasionally imitated it, but only in a few familiar phrases and colloquialisms, chiefly in the Gospel Narrative, and without having any settled principles of translation to guide them on the point. The exact force of the Hebrew tenses has long been a vexed question with critics, but the time cannot be far distant when the general principles of the late learned Professor Samuel Lee of Cambridge, with some modification, will be generally adopted in substance, if not in theory. It would be entirely out of place here to enter into details on this important subject, but a very few remarks appear necessary, and may not be unacceptable to the student.
I. It would appear that the Hebrew writers, when narrating or describing events which might be either past or future (such as the case of Moses in reference to the Creation or the Deluge, on the one hand, and to the Coming of the Messiah or the Calamities which were to befall Israel, on the other), uniformly wrote as if they were alive at the time of the occurrence of the events mentioned, and as eye-witnesses of what they are narrating.
It would be needless to refer to special passages in elucidation or vindication of this principle essential to the proper understanding of the Sacred Text, as every page of this Translation affords abundant examples. It is only what common country people do in this land at the present day, and what not a few of the most popular writers in England aim at and accomplish--placing themselves and their readers in the times and places of the circumstances related.
This principle of translation has long been admitted by the best Biblical Expositors in reference to the Prophetic Delineation of Gospel times, but it is equally applicable and necessary to the historical narratives of Genesis, Ruth, etc.
II. The Hebrew writers often express the certainty of a thing taking place by putting it in the past tense, though the actual fulfilment may not take place for ages. This is easily understood and appreciated when the language is used by God, as when He says, in Genesis 15:18, "Unto thy seed I have given this land;" and in 17:4, "I, lo, My covenant is with thee, and thou hast become a father of a multitude of nations."
The same thing is found in Genesis 23:11, where Ephron answers Abraham: "Nay, my lord, hear me; the field I have given to thee, and the cave that is in it; to thee I have given it; before the eyes of the sons of my people I have given it to thee; bury thy dead." And again in Abraham's answer to Ephron: "Only--if thou wouldst hear me--I have given the money of the field; accept from me, and I bury my dead there." Again in 2 Kings 5:6, the King of Syria, writing to the King of Israel, says: "Lo, I have sent unto thee Naaman, my servant, and thou hast recovered him from his leprosy,"--considering the King of Israel as his servant, a mere expression of the master's purpose is sufficient. In Judges 8:19, Gideon says to Zebah and Zalmunnah, "If ye had kept them alive, I had not slain you." So in Deut. 31:18, "For all the evils that they have done"--shall have done.
It would be easy to multiply examples, but the above may suffice for the present. Some of these forms of expression are preceded by the conjunction "and" (waw, in Hebrew), and a very common opinion has been that the conjunction in these cases has a conversive power, and that the verb is not to be translated past (though so in grammatical form), but future. This is, of course, only an evasion of the supposed difficulty, not a solution, and requires to be supported by the equally untenable hypothesis that a (so-called) future tense, when preceded by the same conjunction waw ("and,") often becomes a past. Notwithstanding these two converting hypotheses, there are numerous passages which have no conjunction before them, which can only be explained by the principle stated above.
III. The Hebrew writers are accustomed to express laws, commands, etc., in four ways:
1st. By the regular imperative form, e.g., "Speak unto the people."
2nd. By the infinitive, "Every male of you is to be circumcised."
3rd. By the (so-called) future, "Let there be light;" "Thou shalt do no murder; " "Six days is work done."
4th. By the past tense, "Speak unto the sons of Israel, and thou hast said unto them."
There can be no good reason why these several peculiarities should not be exhibited in the translation of the Bible, or that they should be confounded, as they often are, in the Common Version. In common life among ourselves, these forms of expression are frequently used for imperatives, e.g., "Go and do this,"--"This is to be done first,"--"You shall go,"--"You go and finish it." There are few languages which afford such opportunities of a literal and idiomatic rendering of the Sacred Scriptures as the English tongue, and the present attempt will be found, it is believed, to exhibit this more than any other Translation.
The three preceding particulars embrace all that appears necessary for the Reader to bear in mind in reference to the Style of the New Translation. In the Supplementary "Concise Critical Commentary," which is now in the course of being issued, abundant proofs and illustrations will be found adduced at length.
