of every variety of size and type, which ready to his hand, compendiously before him. might prove attractive to the taste of the But for the laity-the great body of Chriswealthy, or be adapted to the limited means tian people-such an arrangement is as unof the poor, but which might be demanded necessary as it is cumbersome. We have all by the infirmities of our aged and suffering taught ourselves to look upon the Bible as a brother Christians. But the very reverse of single religious book; but it is, in fact, a this is the case. There is no other class library of religious books. It consists of of works, whether we regard the size, the works composed by different authors, treating type, or the distribution of the letter-press, of different subjects, and written at widely in which we find that so little has been done different times: and it is only one book, into assist the reader, and so much to perplex asmuch as these works are all bound up him, as in the Sacred Scriptures. If it had together in one binding. On ordinary ocbeen the object to multiply their difficulties, casions there are no two of the productions to prejudice their meaning, and to deter men thus compressed between the same boards from the perusal of them, we doubt whether that we are likely to want at the same mothe most accomplished Jesuit could have ment. And if a man would fain take his devised any more effectual mode of publica- evening walk into the fields with the Prophtion than that which has been generally ecies of Isaiah as his companion, it is no adopted, and almost universally prevails. No light grievance to him that he must either works of inferior value could have maintained forego his inclination, or carry along with their ground against the treatment they have him at the same time the Law of Moses and encountered. We are not ignorant of the the History of the Jews; the Psalms of several editions of the Bible which exist; David and the Proverbs of Solomon; the and we fearlessly declare, that we have never Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; the yet met with any copy of the Bible which we Epistles and the Apocalypse. The probabilcould take up and read with typographical ity is that the sight of the incumbrance satisfaction. There are dear Bibles and will be sufficient to counteract his purpose, cheap Bibles: there are Bibles so large that and direct his attention to some other and your hand can with difficulty raise them; and far inferior author. This principle of having there are Bibles so small that they can be all the compositions of all the sacred writers carried about in your pocket: there are collected together in the same volume, has Bibles of which the paper is as glossy as induced the practice of printing our Bibles satin and as thick as paste-board; and there in double columns, because it is the form by are Bibles of which the paper is so dark that which the greatest number of words can be the printing is hardly discernible, and so thin squeezed into one page. But, notwithstandthat the leaves crumple beneath your finger ing this offensive mode of distributing the in turning the pages: but, nevertheless, text, which is puzzling to the sight, by which among all these innumerable and variously the attention is disturbed, and which is only diversified editions, no Bible has been hith- adopted in the cheapest and most inferior erto produced which can be read with as editions of other works, the book is so big much ease and comfort as any ordinary book. and heavy, when the type is large enough to There is no such thing as a readable Bible. be easily read, that no hand of moderate This great evil in one respect results from strength can hold it; or, when the book is a sort of superstitious notion that the Sacred of a moderate weight and dimensions, the Scriptures must be all brought together into type is so minute as to be only legible by eyes a single volume. But why? Superstition of youthful strength and microscopic power. cannot condescend to answer our inquiries, In the "Annotated Paragraph Bible," of and we are incapable of finding any intelli- which the title stands at the head of this gible solution for them ourselves. Such a article, the double column, with some other collective form of publication may be useful disadvantages that obtain in the ordinary for the purpose of reference; and to the editions of the English Scriptures, have been olergyman, in the composition of his sermons, got rid of. That is no inconsiderable gain. it may be a desirable thing to have the whole But the determination to compress the works body of works, from which his proofs and of all the inspired authors into a single volume his illustrations are to be drawn, thus lying has brought its inseparable mischiefs along with it; an unwieldy book, a small, sharp, | An attempt has been made in an edition dazzling character, and a length of line which of the Authorized Version, published by Mr. it is very difficult to follow. Blackader, to introduce a more perspicuous But this pernicious system of compression and correct division of the Holy Scriptures is not, by any means, the most grievous in- into sections and paragraphs; but this pubjury to which the sacred text has been sub-lication is inferior in typographical elegance #jected by editors and printers. This is a and in its annotations to the Paragraph Bible slight evil in comparison with the mischief of the Tract Society. The fact is chiefly which has been inflicted on the sense of the remarkable as a further proof that the deinspired writings by the mode of breaking mand for Bibles printed in an improved form them up into chapter and verse which has is felt by the public, and will doubtless be been uniformly adopted. These divisions, provided for by the booksellers. which have no existence in the original, have The practice of breaking the text of Scripbeen made without any authority whatever. ture into verses would, under any circumThey were introduced for the purpose of lib- stances, prove most injurious to the right erating the theological student from the apprehension of its meaning. It is the necessity of attaining a deep and accurate immediate cause of much misconception. knowledge of the Scriptures, by placing in Passages of Holy Writ, thus insulated, rehis hands a Concordance, which they have ceive a kind of independent character. The been notched and scored to tally with, and sense of each little paragraph seems drawn by which he may be readily assisted to the to a point; and the careless or unlettered discovery of any passage he may chance to reader is apt to confine his attention to the want. About the middle of the thirteenth few words thus placed in an aphoristic form century Cardinal Hugo de Santo Caro pro- before him, and to accept them as a distinct jected a Concordance to the Latin Vulgate, enunciation of some religious dogma; whereand divided the Old and New Testament into as, if they had been presented to his eye in chapters. Rabbi Nathan, in the fifteenth connection with their context, he would at century, in preparing a Concordance of the once have received them in their right meanHebrew Scriptures, subdivided the chapters ing, and been spared the error into which into verses. Robert Stephens, in the sixteenth the present deceptive mode of printing the century, passed simultaneously through the volume has betrayed him. We cannot conpress a New Testament and a Concordance: ceive any case in which evil would not have and, so at least his son Henry tells us, while resulted from the introduction of our divistravelling on horseback between Lyons and ions of Chapter and Verse. With whatever Paris, he cut the New Testament into verses care the Sacred Text had been cut into such for the sake of adapting it to his Concordance.* minute sections, those minute sections must This, we believe, is, in brief, the most ap- necessarily have had a tendency to mislead proved account of the origin of those divis- the reader. But they have not been careions and subdivisions by which our editions fully made. The only end contemplated in of the Bible are disfigured. No other book making them was, to fit the Bible to the ever suffered such irreverent treatment. In Concordance. And that it might be effecall other compositions the paragraph ends where the sense pauses; in the Sacred Scriptures, whatever the sense may be, every third or fourth line brings the reader to the end of the paragraph. They are the only works we happen to be acquainted with in which the correct arrangement of the author's text has been rendered subordinate to the facility of reference. And we are quite sure that they alone are endowed with a sufficient force of vitality to outlive so cruel a process of mutilation. *See "Horne's Introduction to the Holy Scriptures," vol. п. pp. 155-158. Second edition. tually accomplished, every other consideration-the progress of the narrative, the beauty of the poetry, the theological argu ment, and even the grammatical construction of the sentences-have been continually disregarded. We need not enlarge on the detriment which the eloquence, the pathos, the impression, the very intelligibility of the Sacred Writings have incurred from this reckless and fractional mode of subdivisión. But, to show that we have not at all exaggerated the mischief we complain of, we will adduce some instances, which are taken almost at random, and which could be mul tiplied ad libitum, of the senseless mutilation | received method of dividing them. We will that the sacred text has suffered in the take an example from Isaiah. The followprocess. ing lines contain an entire prophecy. They are given in the words of our Common Version, but printed in accordance with the system of parallelism, which is the prominent peculiarity of Hebrew versification. Our first example shall be a passage from the historical portion of Scripture. We will give it as it would properly stand, if printed according to the original, and un`marred by the inventions of the concordancemakers.. We read in the book of Joshua, "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand : And Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries?' And he said, Nay; but as the captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.' And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship, and said unto him, 'What saith Lord unto his servant?' And the capmy tain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, 'Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.' And Joshua did so. (Now Jericho was straitly shut up, because of the children of Israel: none went out and none came in.) And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor," &c. The angel of the Lord, in the words that follow, appoints the measures which were to precede the miraculous downthrow of the walls of Jericho, and which need not be repeated here, as we only wish to show the manner in which a simple passage of history has been injured in the printing. There can be no doubt but it ought to be given as it stands above, in unbroken succession. But how is it printed in our English Bibles? It is cut in two in the midst. One part is found at the end of the fifth chapter of Joshua, the other part at the beginning of the sixth. And at what point is the break in the narrative introduced? It is divided at the commencement of the parenthesis, in which, with a view of rendering the concluding words of the angel of the Lord more intelligible to the reader, the historian states that Jericho was at the time besieged by the children of Israel. This is bewildering enough. By most readers of the Common Version it would be conceived that the verses which conclude the fifth chapter and those which open the sixth, instead of conveying the continuous account of the same Divine visitation, related to two separate appearances of the angel of the Lord. PROPHETIC ODE FROM ISAIAH. "The Lord sent a word unto Jacob; and it hath lighted upon Israel. And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, That say, in the pride and stoutness of heart, The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; The sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, And join his enemies together; The Syrians before and the Philistines behind; And they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this, His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still. "For the people turneth not unto Him that smiteth them, Neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts. Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel Head and tail, branch* and rush, in one day: The Ruler and the Honorable, he is the head, And the Prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. For the leaders of this people cause them to err; And they that are led of them are destroyed. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, Neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows; For every one is an hypocrite and an evil-doer, And every mouth speaketh folly. For all this, His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still. "For wickedness burneth as the fire; It shall devour the briers and thorns, And shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, And they shall mount up, like the lifting up of smoke. Through the wrath of the Lord of Hosts is the land darkened,† And the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: No man shall spare his brother. And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; And he shall eat on the left hand, and shall not be satisfied: They shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: Manasseh Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh; And they together shall be against Judah. For all this, His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still. But perhaps the mischief is less felt in the narrative than in the poetic portions of the Bible. And we will adduce an instance in proof of the manner in which not only the beauty, but even the intelligibility, of the appropriately contrasted with the rush, which springs from sacred odes of the Prophets suffer from the i. e. the palm branch, which grows aloft, and is most the ground. † Burnt up. "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, And that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, enough to bear up against, and maintain its place in public estimation under, the usage to which the Bible has been subjected by its editors. We had, at one time, intended to And to take away the right from the poor of my evince the deteriorating and enfeebling ef people; That widows may be their prey; And that they may rob the fatherless. far? To whom will ye flee for help? And where will be your glory? fect of such an injurious process of division, by printing two or three of the finest passages from our own authors, snipt into pieces and severed, without any sense of compunction, from their context, as the Sacred Scriptures are printed; but we have refrained in tenderness for the feelings of Without me they shall bow down under the our readers. We spare them the exhibi prisoners, And they shall fall under the slain. For all this, His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still." The above passage from Isaiah is a distinct and unconnected poem. It is as much an entire composition of itself as an ode of Collins or of Gray. And it conveys a very sublime denunciation of the wickedness of the Jews, and an appalling picture of the judicial inflictions with which the Almighty was about to punish them. But if the reader look for it in his Bible, without some especial directions, the chances are that he will have no little difficulty in discovering it. In our Common Version, the poem is not only preceded and followed by extraneous matter, but is actually cleft in two by a division of chapters. Its three fine opening stanzas will be found at the conclusion of the ninth chapter of Isaiah, and the remaining stanza at the beginning of the tenth! We abstain from laying before our readers any particular errors that have been made in the typographical distribution of the text of the New Testament; but the general sense of that most holy volume has been more perniciously affected by the chapter and verse divisions of Robert Stephens, than any portion of the Old Testament by the officious meddling of his predecessors. What would be the effect on the understanding of the student, if a metaphysical essay of Dugald Stewart were set before him in a form as lacerated and severed as that in which he is condemned to read the Theological Essays of St. Paul? Would he not find himself lost in a sort of labyrinth of words, amid which he was unable, on account of the continually recurring breaks in the sentences, to trace the connection of the argument? A very intelligent friend of ours declares, that he never could comprehend the drift of the Epistle to the Romans, till he read it without the interruptions of chapter and verse, in Shuttleworth's translation. And we entirely sympathize with him in his embarrassment. We repeat that no other work whatever would have possessed internal life tion of so distressing a martyrdom. And, perhaps, the introduction of such a curiosity would rather serve to extend the length of our article than add force to our argument. In the "Annotated Paragraph Bible," the text has not been subjected to any such vicious dismemberment; and, if the volume were less inconvenient to the hand, and the character more easy to the eye, we could have little fault to find with the typographical arrangements of the editor. But is not the condition of our common English Bibles obnoxious to charges of a far more grave description than those which we have already noticed, and which merely relate to the size of the volume and the distribution of the letter-press? Does the translation itself present that full, correct, and distinct expression of the sense of the original, which all Christian people, who look to the sacred volume as their paramount religious authority, would be desirous of possessing, and which all who entertain a pious reverence for its contents would be anxious to afford them? We do not ask this question unadvisedly, or from a desire of putting forward any peculiar theory or favorite de vices of our own. We make the inquiry simply as Christian laymen, who most sincerely wish to learn what the Sacred Scriptures were designed to teach us; whose only means of acquiring a saving knowledge of the truth is an accurate translation, and who look to our ecclesiastical superiors for the grant of so reasonable a demand on their learning and their zeal. We studiously place ourselves in the position of persons who are utterly ignorant of the original languages, and whose only information respecting the state of our national version is derived from the most patent and familiar sources, the notes of Scott, of Adam Clarke, of D'Oyley, and Mant, and of the Paragraph Bible: and we ask whether any man, with the continual emendations which are suggested in these commentaries before him, can entertain the persuasion that our common English Bible really does afford an adequate representation of the sense of the Inspired Writings, or that it should be al lowed any longer to remain in its present quent passage, were struck with the ambiunimproved condition? tion of using a fine word, and converted love What was the opinion of Selden, a high into charity, -a term only intelligible to authority on such a subject, at the time of the classical theologian, who knows that love its last revision? "There is no book," says is a fruit of grace, and that grace is English that learned man, "so translated as the for zugis; that zugis is the etymological root Bible for the purpose. If I translate a of charity, and that, consequently, charity French book into English, I turn it into may be used as a synonyme for love? Why is English phrase and not into French-English. adóziuos ordinarily rendered reprobate, and Il fait froid,' I say, 'It is cold;' not 'It on one occasion (1 Cor. ix. 27) cast-away? makes cold but the Bible is rather trans- Of the text last referred to, the present lated into English words, than into English Archbishop of Canterbury says, -"This is phrase. The Hebraisms are kept, and the one of the many passages, which have sufphrase of that language is kept; which is fered by the general bias of the age in which well enough so long as scholars have to do our translation was made."* That " genwith it; but when it comes among the com- eral bias" was Calvinistic, -the bias, in mon people, Lord, what gear do they make our opinion, which is most thoroughly at of it! 99 # Most extraordinary, indeed, is the variance with the spirit of the Gospel: but gear they make of it! And none but those whether Calvinistic, or Arian, or Socinian, who may have had the curiosity to turn oc- or Arminian, or of whatever party, if a tencasionally into some of our country conven- dency in favor of any particular school of ticles, in which the neighboring tailor, or theology be discoverable in the pages of our the journeyman cobbler, officiates as the ex- version, and the sense of the original has positor of the Sacred Text, can imagine the been warped by it, are we justified in permiserable misapprehensions to which this mitting it to remain? On the contrary, are peculiar, literal, word for word mode of we not guilty of a very great irreverence rendering the Scriptures has given rise. It and wrong, in allowing the poison to conmay, perhaps, be worth while to cite a few tinue there and to mix its taint with the instances of the Hebrew phrases to which Selden alluded, and which, as literally translated, bewilder the understanding of the reader: "A covenant of salt," means "a friendly contract; "they are crushed in the gate," means "they are found guilty in a court of justice; "branch and rush," means "the highest and lowest; "the calves of our lips," means "the words of our mouths; rising early," means acting with alacrity; "I have given you clean- 1st. Such as are produced by a restoraness of teeth," means "extreme scarcity." tion of the text of the ancient MSS. Such are the sort of Hebraisms which have Such as are produced by a better system of been retained; and, as Selden says, "What punctuation. 3rd. Such as are produced by gear do the common people make of them!" transposing the words into a nearer conformBut is it fair to the devotional feelings of ity with the original order. 4th. Such as the less educated classes of our countrymen, are produced by bringing out the emphasis that the Bible should be placed before them of words, apparent in the original text, in so ambiguous a form without any explan- either from the use of the pronoun, or from atory notice, and that at the same time any the place of the words in the sentence. one should be allowed, whether qualified or Such as are produced by inaccuracy of transunqualified, to interpret it to them as he lation." Mr. Stanley gives instances of the will? corrections that he has made of mistakes, arising out of all the five sources of error enumerated above. The inaccuracies, resulting from these causes, are not restricted to the Epistles to the Corinthians. They may be found in every book of the New Testament. Professor Scholefield, no incompetent authority, published before his death a small volume of some 170 pages, full of 99 66 But if this scheme of word for word translation was to be adopted, why was it not uniformly carried out? Why is the same word differently translated in different passages, though its signification is the same in all of them? Why is dizaioourn sometimes righteousness and sometimes justification? Why is ayúлn, love throughout the whole of the New Testament, except in 1 Cor. xiii. 14, when the translators, lighting upon an elo *Selden's Table Talk. waters that flow from the well-spring of men 2nd. 5th. Apostolic Preaching, page 186. Third Edition, note. † Vol. I. pp. 311, 312. Hints for an Improved Translation of the New Testa ment. |