BIBLE IN MODERN ENGLISH

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 1210, 7 January 1925, Page 6

BIBLE IN MODERN ENGLISH

DR. JAMES MOFFATT'S WORK AND HIS AIMS. With the publication of the Old Testament in modern English, the work of translating the whole Bible into the English of the present day has been completed. Dr. James Moffatt of Glasgow, Professor of Church History, has spent eight years on retranslating the Old Testament, In 1913 he published the New Testament in a new and modern version, and in both cases his work was a new translation and not a rewriting of the present authorised versions. "Every word of the work has been written in his own handwriting," a Daily Mail reporter was told by Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, who are to publish the work. . Dr. Moffatt, who believes that every age should have its own translation of tho Bible, said that it can be as easily understood as a newspaper and ho has, for this reason, used words that many may regard as liberties. He calls Joseph the Viceroy instead of "tho Governor over the land ' ; uses the word "barge" for Noah's ark; instead of the word "firmament" in the story of the Creation he uses tho phrase "Vault of Heaven"; and he speaks of the garden which God planted as a park. Dr. Moffatt has written in his own handwriting 1 the whole of the New Testament six times and the Old Testament at least twice.-