IV. Critical Estimatt if the Authorized Version, — It has often been affirmed that "King James's Bible is in no part a new translation taken directly from the originals, but that it is merely a revision of the earlier English versions, and compared with various Conti- nental translations." These remarks are not strictly correct. The translators themselves give us a correct view of the nature of their work. In their dedication to King James, they observe, " Your highness, out of deep judgment, apprehended how convenient it. was that, out of tin original tongues, together with compar- ing of the labors, both in our own and other foreign languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there should be one more exact translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English tongue." It must be admitted, however, that they closely followed the Septuagint and Vulgate in their emendations of pre- vious English translations to suit the originals. As King; James's version has been as extravagantly eulo- i gized by some as it has been unduly decried by oth-
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ers, it will be well calmly and briefly to consider its merits as well as its faults.
The most prominent perhaps among its excellences is its simple, pure, and nervous style. Its words are usually chosen from the old and more expressive Saxon element. It is this feature, no doubt, that has so en- deared it to the popular heart, and which gives it a charm to the youngest reader. There are some no- ticeable exceptions to this remark, however, for it sometimes uses Latin terms when Saxon were at hand, e. g. "cogitation" for thought, "illuminate" for en- lightened; "matrix" for womb; " prognosticator" for foreteller; "terrestrial" for earthly; "vocation" for calling, etc. In the Lord's Prayer, at both passages (Matt, vi, 13; Luke xi, 4), our translators employ "temptation" instead of trial. Another marked ex- cellence that has usually been attributed to the Auth. Vers, is its general accuracy and fidelity to the orig- inal. In this respect it compares to great advantage with the Septuagint, which not only very often misses or misconstrues the entire drift of a clause, but some- times interpolates words and whole verses from apoc- ryphal sources ; and also with the Vulgate and other ancient versions, which, if they do not, like the Tar- gums, run into paraphrase, yet are very often misled into fanciful and erroneous interpretations. To this commendation, however, there must, in candor and truth, lie made very large drawbacks in many indi- vidual renderings of the A. V., and even in whole classes of renderings. Not only were the sciences of sacred philology, and especially of Biblical geography and antiquities, in too crude a state to enable the trans- lators to lix the exact meaning of obscure and doubt- ful terms with precision, but they have totally ignored the diction, style, and arrangement of the poetic por- tions, especially the laws of parallelism (q. v.), re- ducing poetry to prose, and transposing the words in the clauses arbitrarily and without reference to the original. They habitually neglect the import of moods and tenses, especially in the Hebrew (constantly ren- dering the pneter or future by the p)-esent or indefinite past, or the reverse), and they constantly lose the true force of particles and the nice shades of meaning in the prepositions, the article, and syntactical construction. Occasionally they are very happy in their renderings, but there is scarcely a verse, especially in the more highly-wrought and terse utterances of the 0. T., that is not marred or obscured by some loose or incorrect expression. It may safely be said that one half of modern popular commentaries is taken up with the correction of errors and the solution of difficulties, which a close, idiomatic, lucid, and judicious transla- tion would at once have dissipated. It is true, few if any who have tried their hand at improved versions have succeeded any better ; but this has usually been either because they were incompetent persons, or by reason of some dogmatic aim the}' had in view. Schol- ars who hive been otherwise qualified have not tliem- S3lves sufficiently appreciated the poetic element per- vading the Hebrew writings, or they have overdone the task by embellishing rather than following the text.
Among the more obvious blemishes of the A. V. are its obsolete and indelicate phrases, its arbitrary and often absurd, always confusing, subdivision into chap- ters and verses, and its inexact and defective mode of punctuation. These are so objectionable, that, but for the attachment which long and early association pro- duces for the version, it would often be laid aside for anjr other which avoided these faults. From these causes alone the Song of Solomon has been practically discarded from both public and private reading, and many parts of the Bible cannot be safely ventured upon in a promiscuous company. The difficulty, it is true, sometimes lies in the passage itself, but there are very few instances where such phraseology might not properly be employed as would obviate all cmbarrass- Nx
' ment. If any other book were as badly edited as out | common Bibles, it would have provoked severe liter- i ary animadversion. But the inherent interest of the volume, the ineffaceable beauty of its sentiments, and ■ the irrepressible force of its teachings break through every disguise, and command the attention of all minds and hearts. I Among the lesser failings of the Auth. Version may be mentioned its frequent renderings of the same word or phrase in the original by various terms or expres- sions. This want of uniformity (which those who ure this Cyclopaedia will continually have occasion to ob- serve) was the result, probably, in part at least, of the execution of the translation by various parties. In proper names and technical terms, the identification not unfrequently becomes impossible to ordinary read- ers. Other infelicities seem to have been, in part at least, the result of king James's restrictive rules.