MODERN EDITION OF THE BIBLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22961, 12 February 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

MODERN EDITION OF THE BIBLE

Many. Printing Reforms

By J.LS.

THE last excuse for not reading the Bible** the' physical difficulties created by extremely small print and marginal or a deep central gully of' cross references unintelligible to the ordinary reader, has been removed by the Heinemann production of "The Bible Designed to be Read as Literature." It is a massive volume, but no larger than some of the long novels that have been issued recently. The type is large ancl clear and adequately spaced. It is now a simple pleasure to read one or more books of the .Old or New Testaments at a sitting. So many worth-while reforms have been introduced in the printing of this edition that it is not easy to say off hand which appeals most. But first glance notes the absence of the horrible practice of dividing the chapters into small verses which divide the subject matter, and which have provided text quoters with ammunition for argument often away from the context. A Comparison How well the paragraphing has been Hone will be apparent from the foli lowing comparisons from the Sermon on the Mount. The first is from a usual edition of the Bible: 14 Ye are the light of the world. A City that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. , . 36 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify year rather which is in heaven. In the edition from which this extract Is taken,there are no fewer than five marginal notes and the margin itself is so overloaded" that the notes are printed at lealst an inch below the verses to which they refer, Here ~is the same extract from the Heinemann edition: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your 4ight so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." " It will be noted that the language is •xactly the same, that.of-the Authorised version. Instead of three small ,verses there is one paragraph without numbering. Quotation marks are used in all prose,speech and verse is printed' as verse.~ •< Editor's Purpose The new edition has been edited Arranged by Ernest Sutherland Bates. EHe has done good service to the ordinary reader by lopping off genealogical tables and such like matter of only extremely specialised interest and he has. rid it of redundancies and repetitions. (The text has been narratively arranged according to the most modern research, the editor's general purpose-being:— To afford a consecutive narrative from the creation to the exile,.supplementing this by a selection from the Apocryphal I. Maccabees (taken like the rest from the Authorised-version) in .order to comSlete the story down to the times . of esus; to emphasise the greatest of the Prophets and minimise the others;-to're-arrange the drama, poetry arid fiction, addiaz to the .latter; the worlfi-fa.mous ■<. tales of-Judith. Tobit and Susanna -and the Elders,/together with selections-from Ecclesiastics'lind the,. Wisdom.of ,. mon (all.in theAmfcoriSed translation-of the Apo:ryphaJ; 10 graphy in .the Gospel according u>Marfeithe authoritative, supplemented by those incidents and teachings- not found in Mark but in the other Gospels; to restrict the utterances dr P«it w those only that . have immortal value and to omit entirely the unimportant' pseudonymous epistles j and, so far as sequence of contents permits, to print, all the works in the order of their composition. ,•»

There are bound to be some who will resent any interference wit.li the old idea of printing the Bible or of editing it. To them the answer can be made that the old forms are available in .plenty. ' "The Bible Designed to be Bead as Literature." (Heinemann.)