NEW TESTAMENT UP TO DATE

Evening Star, Issue 23130, 2 December 1938, Page 2

NEW TESTAMENT UP TO DATE

APOCRYPHA IN VERNACULAR ENGLISH COMPLEMENT TO EARLIER WORK Dr .Edgar J. Goodspeed, whose Arnerican translation of the New Testament from the original Greek into vernacular English exceeds 100.000 circulation, has just published the Apocrypha from original Greek sources, and is at work- with,' the. New Testament committee on a ,revision of the American Standard Version (writes A. Rothblum in the ‘ Christian Science Monitor ’). Dr Goodspeed is professor emeritus of Biblical Greek in the University of Chicago. His reverent devotion to making the Bible better known is reflected in his writings, so that the privilege of visiting- him in his study sent mo off eagerly to his country residence at • Paradise Island, Plum Lake, Wisconsin. In this cool and refreshing retreat the New Testament section of the American Standard Bible Committee met last summer at Dr Goodspeed ’b invitation ■ '■» REVISION COMMITTEE. The American Standard Version of the Bible (the. work.-.of the American Revision Committee of 1870-80) is being revised under the auspices'of the International Council of Religious Education, and a committee of 16 revisers has been organised. The roster of -revisers, as guests of Dr Goodspeed, includes the notable names. of Dean,. Luther A. Weigle and Millar Barrows, of Yale, Henry J. Cadbury, of Harvard, Clarence Craig, of Oberlin, James Moffatt,. of Union,. Frederick Grant,. ;of Seabury-Western Divinity School of Evanston, and W. Russell Bowie, of Grace Church,; New York. These scholars are engaged in an intensiverevision of the Gospels, for which, smaller committees have made elaborate preparation., of materials in advance. The commitiee has been’devoting eight hours: a’day. to steady committee work, ■ and gratifying " progress'is - being" made.It is -hoped the undertaking will be coin- ’■ pleted in five ’years.,'- Then a revised ‘ form of’the American Standard Ver - sion -will be' published to "replace the present one. ". It Was in the autumn ,of 1920 that the professor inaugurated his activities. in translating the, New Testament. He read his translation of . Mark in the Divinity Chapel of the University ofChicago. He was experimenting to see the sort of reception it would command, and found that he was listened to with, a rapt attention that he had never before commanded. Evidently there was a real need to be supplied. , KING JAMES VERSION. Professor Goodspeed is the grateful possessor of a copy .of one of the first printings of the King James Bible—indeed, it is the’ chief treasure of his extensive library. It is an original copy of the 1611 printing. Professor Goodspeed is very deficit# in his reverential regard for the King James version of the Bible. As the fruit of more than .75 years of revision of the English Bible, it occupies, a unique place as a.sacred monument of English literature and a. treasure of Christian liturgy. Every line of it is. freighted with religious association for all. Its place is perfectly secure.. It should be borne in mind that the old verse division, invented in 1551- by : Robert- Estienne, the French -printer, aiid the chapter divisions devised by Stephen Langton, the English ’Archbishop of Canterbury about 1200, often interrupt continuity and coherence. Dr Goodspeed is of the conviction that probably every book of the New Testament was intended to be read through at a single sitting, and even the longest of them can be read in two hours. It, is this continuous and Coherent understanding of ■ the New Testament which must be made available, he thinks, and which the modern translation seeks to achieve. Professor Goodspeed’s latest publication is his American translation of theApocrypha, off the press bn. October 3. For some years he had been urged- to consider the heed for a modern translation of that mysterious fringe on tho Old Testament, which so many Bible printings now omit. The Apocrypha formed . the religious background’ of New Testament'; times, and were an integral part of the .King James version. In fact, soou.after ,1610, George Abbot, an English prelate who was - King James’s principal- New .Testament reviser, made an ordinance-that anyone who printed the English Bible’ without the Apocrypha should bo imprisoned for a year. While individual books of the Apocrypha have been translated from tim# to time by scholars here and there, no one seems to have undertaken a complete translation of the Greek Apocrypha directly into English. Even th# Revised Version of 1895 of the Apocdypha by the English Revision Committee rested mainly upon the King Janies version, which in turn rested ultimately upon Miles Coverdale’s translation’of the Apocrypha from the Latin in 1535.