BIBLE TRANSLATOR

Taranaki Daily News, 15 November 1934, Page 7

BIBLE TRANSLATOR

SCRIPTURE IN MODERN LANGUAGE. DISTINGUISHED VISITOR DUE. The prospective visit to the Dominion of Dr. James Moffatt will be a matter of very great interest to a large number. Dr. Moffatt is a learned divine, who is well known for his contributions to theological advance, and he has besides achieved numerous literary successes. These alone would assure him a welcome among religious people. His fame is based mainly, however, upon his translation of the successive books of the Bible into modern, everybody language. The day is past when the Bible, taken in its entirety, can be looked upon as a fetish, a complete and ready-made article sent from heaven for the guidance and obedience of all men, after the manner of the Koran. Literary research has for many decades been busy with each book in the divine library. As Dr. Moffatt states, “No translation of an ancient classic can be quite intelligible unless the reader is sufficiently acquainted with its environment to understand some of its flying allusions and characteristic metaphors." Modern inquiry has provided us with an abundance of information on precisely these lines. Until comparatively recent times, however, some knowledge of Hebrew and Greek has been necessary to an understanding of the two testaments, even with all this information at hand. But Dr. Moffatt’s productions, “The Old Testament: A New Translation” (in two volumes) and “The New Testament: A New Translation” (in one volume), so set out the original of these in the language of the street as almost to do away with the peed for study of the languages named. In these works the translator claims to “transcribe for the unlearned the literature of the Bible as it lies in the light thrown upon it by modem research.” His works do not profess to be a further revision of the original, but an entirely new translation from it. This con-’ stitutes them therefore, in the main, an interpretation. And few men have given the same amount of time and energy to studying the original, with a view to conveying to the average reader the impression gained, as has the learned doctor. The great hope cherished by him was that the literature of the Bible should become a new creation, as it were, to its readers, and at once more interesting and less obscure. The ideal of a translator, states the doctor, is “to let his readers enjoy part of the pleasure which the original ope afforded to its audience in some far-off century.” And most assuredly Dr. Moffatt has made this possible. He has translated the scriptures “exactly as one would render any piece of contemporary Hellenistic prose.” Only a first-rate scholar can carry out the translation in such manner as to benefit its readers in precisely the way aimed at by this noted Scots divine. Another great scholar, Dr. Rouse, has said: “The English reader may be quite competent to judge of a translation as literature and as intelligible or not intelligible, but he cannot judge of its accuracy. The scholar alone can do this.”

The best evidence of the success of Dr. Moffatt’s attempts at such accurate translation lies in the fact that his work has found its way into practically every comprehensive library, whether public or private, througho- t the world. » Other recent works by the doctor are “Everyman’s Life of Jesus” (a narrative in the words of the four Gospels), “The Approach to the New Testament,” and “The Bible in Scots Literature.” He has held a number of high positions in religious and literary spheres, filling them all with conspicous ability and success. Dr. Moffatt will arrive at Auckland on Saturday and will preach in that city ,on Sunday, being broadcast from St. David’s Presbyterian Church that evening. During the period following he will visit Rotorua, Waikere, Gisborne and Napier. On Sunday, December 2, he will preach twice at Levin, the evening service being combined. Monday and Tuesday will be spent mostly at Wellington, a civic reception in the city council chambers taking place at noon on Tuesday. He will go to Christchurch and Dunedin, where there will be a further civic reception accorded him, and a public meeting held. He will return to Wellington for services on December 9 and will leave the Dominion on December IL