The Evening Star THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1934. THE WORST PRINTED BOOK.

Evening Star, Issue 21622, 18 January 1934, Page 8

The Evening Star THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1934. THE WORST PRINTED BOOK.

' / —' ■' ' - The Rev. Dr Dearmer, canon of Westminster and a voluminous writer on religious subjects, bas reason to say that the Bible is the world’s .worst printed boob. The statement has been made not infrequently before, and it comes as near to being indisputable as any pronouncement made in such sweeping fashion could do, but only the smallest concern has ever been caused by' it. To quote Dr Dearmer further: “The forbidding form in which the Bible is given us is like binding up Tennyson, Banyan, Macaulay, and Shakespeare in one volume, with the titles of all poems and essays cut out and the names of speakers and the division of speeches removed, as well as quotation marks.” It might be added that a good deal of the historical part of it resembles a ‘ history in which the genealogical tables (set out as narrative) and long rd?ords of sanitary and other regulations are given as part of the text and not as appendices. Dr Dearmer has reason to say that any publisher attempting to bring out a new book in k such form and typography would be ruined in twelve months. The main object of the typbgraphy would appear generally to be to render the book unreadable except by the eyesight of youth. But that, is how Bibles have for generations been printed, on the principle that it is better that the whole should be unreadable than that ordinances and chapters of “ begcttings,” which have least value for a modern reader, should bo left out. There is one complaint of Dr Dearmer with which we do not agree. “ The ■whole thing,” he protests, “ is divided into chapters which sometimes cut right ■ across the meaning and are subdivided into sentences of convenient length for parsing.” The chapter breaks very seldom disturb the meaning, and the division into sentences which are less than paragraphs, apart from the great value which it has for reference, is in line with the whole tendency of modern American and a great deal of modern British journalism. Undoubtedly it has its advantages for the mass of readers, or it would not have been copied in those quarters. The “ make-up ” of the Bible is one thing; the language of it is another. It is a pity that the people who do strive at times to amend the first and a. few obscurities, made by the lapse of time and defective translation, in the second, can never be content without rewriting it. They seem almost immediately to become obsessed by the notion that very little of it really is intelligible to the present-day reader —either that, or their conviction must bo that almost anyone can write better tfijui the Authorised Version. There have been repeated demands, curiosity and the hope of profit to be made by publishers inspiring them, for publication of the summary of the Gospels which Dickens wrote for his children. Dickens sternly forbade its publication. No doubt he knew his limitations. It would be a blessing if new translators could bo as humble, if they would alter only where alteration is essential for the sake of correctness of meaning; treating the text generally as sacred. For want of that restraint Dr Moffatt. in his version of the Parable of the Good .Samaritan, has to alter “ go, and do thou likewise ” to “ then go and

do the same.” Another version, heard over the wireless recently, made it “ go then and act in the same manner.” Was the original less comprehensible than these variants? To quote Dr Moffatt again, ( is the lucidness greater of “ I am dark,, but I am a beauty,” than of, “I am black but comely,” or what advantages has “ till the cool of the dawn, till the shadows depart,” over “ until the day break, and the shadows flee away”? Many corrections that are made for the sake of the sense do not alter the sense appreciably, while they ruin cadences, and the “ correction ” of one new translator may be renounced by another. iso far as the sentences are concerned, the newest American 1 Short Bible ’ makes them shorter still, so that we read: Because man goes to his final home, And the mourners go around in the street; While the silver cord is not severed, Nor the golden bowl broken, Nor the jar shattered at the spring, Nor the wheel broken at the cistern; Nor the dust return to the earth as it wai, Nor the spirit return to God who gave it. “ Futility of futilities,” says Koheleth, “ all-is futility.” Yet there are preachers who prefer these modern versions to the established one, when the best use would be made of them by adding an explanation, here and. there, to the Authorised text, where a difference of meaning seemed to be important, not withholding from those whom they would impress the appeal made by beauty. The new publisher who will amend real incongruities of form, and substitute a new word' for an old one when, and only when, that is really required by the sense—which will be very rarely—will be a benefactor indeed.