New Baptist Biblee

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 6, 5 February 1913, Page 49

New Baptist Biblee

ADAM AND EVE .SUPPLANTED. Chicago’s clergy was stirred recently (by the contents of the revised Bible, in ■which, seventeenth century diction gives way to modern language. The publication, which lias just been issued by the American Baptist Publication Society, with headquarters in Philadelphia, eliminates obsolete words and replaces them with terms in general use. Many of the ministers iu uttering their protests argue that the Bible has been modernised too much already. “Adam and Eve,” named as the founders of -the human race iu the King James version, give way in the new Bible to the terms “man” and “woman.”

Such words as “loveth” and “Icadeth” are replaced by “love” and “lead.” Where hell is referred to in the sixteenth chapter of St. Luke, the word “underworld” is substituted. Portions written in poetry in the old Bible are printed in their verse form. Other changes in the new version are:—

(Use of the phrase “carved image” instead of “graven image” in the first commandment.

Placing of the word ‘ immerse” in parentheses beside the word “baptize.” Substitution of the phrase “great fish” for tho word “whale” in the story of Jonah and the whale.

’Editor J. S. Dickerson, of the “Baptist Standard,” said: —•

“The phrase ‘Baptist Bible’ is ridiculous. The new translation which has been under way for a generation was a task imposed upon the American Baptist Publication Society by a convention that met in Saratoga, New York, in 1883.

“The King James version, with all its stateliness and dignity of phraseology, is known to "contain errors of translation based in some instances on a faulty original text. “Many of these errors have been noted in tho present revision of the Bible. This new translation, of which the first copies were published some months ago, is another attempt to obtain for the people a translation whi. h is correct and which omits obsolete English words. The work has been performed largely by noted Baptist scholars, but it is no -more a ‘Baptist Bible* than tho revised version is an ’Episcopal Bible because the work of translation was numaged by Fqitscopalians and the meetings of tho reviaeN were held in Westminster Abbey,’ l -

Here is the new version of the Lord’s Prayer. "Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done, as in heaven so on earth. Give us this day ouc daily bread. And forgive us our debts us we also have forgiven our debtors, and being us not into temptation, hut deliver u» from the evil one.”