MODERN EUROPEAN VERSIONS, ETC.
IN entering upon this chapter we would again refer the reader of the English Authorized Version to the Translators' Preface, in which attention is called to the words of Augustine that express the feeling so
common amongst Biblical students as to the advantage to be derived from the use of divers translations. Variety of translations,' says this Preface, is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures.' Augustine's words are worth quoting : Plurimum hic quoque juvat interpretum numerositas collatis codicibus inspecta atque discussa.' We shall here speak of some other modern versions useful in the study of the Bible.
§ 1. Continental Translations
Of Continental versions, that which is of the most historical interest is the German by Luther, 1523-1534, the basis of most other Teutonic Bibles. The best edition seems to be that by Von Gerlach, with Introductions and Notes (1870-4). There is also a Revision of Luther by Meyer, with Introductions and Notes (1835). We must add Bunsen's Bibelwerk' (1858– 1870) ; De Wette's German translation (last edition, 1858), in which there are some useful critical notes ; and the Elberfeld version by J. N. Darby (1871).
The Protestant Italian, by Diodati (1607).
The Protestant Dutch, States' Version (1637). Both the Italian and the Dutch are in high estimation.
The Catholic French, by Lemaistre de Saci (1696). It appears that the only French translation which has been sanctioned by the Pope is an excellent version by the Abbe Glaire (1873). Of Protestant versions in France there is Martin (1707),in Dickenson's Hexaglott Bible (1874-6), and Ostervald (1724), adopted by the British and Foreign Bible Society. There is also Segond (1880), which must be used with great caution.
The Protestant Spanish by Cassiodoro Reyna, revised by Cypriano de Valera (1602). A new edition, with many modifications, especially in Isaiah, has recently been printed in Barcelona. Of Catholic versions, there is an interesting one from the Vulgate, by Padre Scio de S. Miguel (1797), which has been reprinted by Bagster. Both these Spanish versions appear to be literal and trustworthy.
The reader should further consult J. N. Darby's Preface to his English translation of the New Testament, whose own French version of the Old Testament, executed at Pau, is now in course of publication; also Schaff's Encyclopædia, under 'Bible Versions.'
§ 2. Commentaries, and Other Critical Helps.
Patristic.—We may use the works of Origen and Jerome, the only Fathers whose work is of any critical value. Opinions will probably always widely differ as to the value of patristic interpretation. The reader curious to know how the Fathers' took any passages, would generally find whatever is of value in Words-worth's Commentary on the Old Testament.
Of Protestant German books that have largely given an impetus to critical effort amongst ourselves, the student cannot do better than use the following:—Keil's Critical and Historical Introduction to the Canonical and Apocryphal Writings of the Old Testament' (1873), of which there is a translation in Clark's Series.
Keil and Delitzsch's Biblical Commentary' (Clark). Franz Delitzsch, in the writer's opinion, is the prince of living Hebraists: the Buxtorf of the nineteenth century, he combines the most thorough learning with a devout appreciation of the Divine in Scripture. His Genesis has not yet been translated into English, but Job, Psalms, and Isaiah are aveilable. It is in Isaiah this commentator is at his best; for example, in his wise and beautiful remarks on 4:4, as to the Messianic reign, and in his treatment of ch. 6. His Hebrew New Testament, as also a Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and The Epistle to the Romans illustrated from the Talmud and Midrashim (Expositions),' are prized by all who can use them. The prefaces he has written to Baer's Masoretic texts have already been noticed.—All of Keil's contributions to this series have been translated.
Of Protestant English books representing scholarship employed on the side of revealed truth, help may often be derived from the following:—
Robert Payne Smith on Genesis and on Jeremiah. The one exposition is in the Commentary on the Old Testament for English Readers' edited by Ellicott; the other in the so-called Speaker's Commentary.' Dr. Payne Smith is one of the most learned of the present Revisers of the Old Testament translation.
George Rawlinson on Exodus, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther: from a scholar who is in the first rank of writers upon ancient history. The Commentary on Exodus is in Ellicott's work, the rest in that edited by Cook. Some interesting papers by Professor Rawlinson were contributed to the ‘Bible Educator.' His little book of ‘Historical Illustrations' and his work on ‘The Religions of the Ancient World' are of great value.
Christian D. Ginsburg on Leviticus. This Commentary is by the author of a Work upon the Masora, and will be found in the first volume of Ellicott on the Old Testament. Dr. Ginsburg has been a member of the Old Testament Revision company. He brings a good deal of light to bear upon Leviticus.
John James Stewart Perowne on the Psalms: everything that could be desired in point of scholarship would be found in this Work. As already intimated, Dr. Perowne has been engaged in the Revision.
Thomas Kelly Cheyne on the Prophecies of Isaiah. This able commentary is by one who seems to be feeling his way to a more conservative exegesis than is favored by the school of Ewald, to which he has belonged; that is one reason for our including his book in this list. Mr. Cheyne's Hebrew scholarship is of the first order. He has been a member of the Old Testament Revision company.
Edward Bouverie Pusey on the Minor Prophets. This commentary stands quite alone in the English language; but it needs to be read with a good many grains of salt.—The Lectures on Daniel by the same erudite ecclesiastic were perhaps his best contribution to Apologetics, Nearly every word of his concluding remarks in that Work seems written in gold. It is not inquiry,' he says, but a non-inquiring acquiescence in doubt which is the peril of this day. It costs much to disbelieve; it requires submission to our God and His grace to believe.... It is not for the present a day of naked blasphemy. The age is mostly too soft for it. Voltaire's ecrasez l’infame shocks it. Yet I know not whether the open blasphemy of the eighteenth century is more offensive than the cold-blooded patronizing ways of the nineteenth. Rebellion against God is not so degrading nor so deceiving as a condescending acknowledgment of His being, while it denies His rights over us. Be not then imposed upon by smooth words. It is an age of counterfeits... The battle must be fought. It is half-won when any one has firmly fixed in his mind the first principle that God is all-wise and all-good, and that man's own wisdom, although from God, is no measure for the wisdom of God, and cannot sound its depth... You must make your choice. Let it be a real one. But, before you choose, set before you that day in which you shall see unveiled all which you now see in part, and what it will be to find, that they whom you adopted as teachers—critics and criticism which has in no case survived its parents—taught you to ignore or deny or disbelieve, or accuse in the name of God, what is indeed the very truth of God. Even in this life those mists which hurry along so vehemently, so darkly, so impetuously, like hosts disarrayed, in you tumultuous, thronging and seemingly endless flight, part to the eye which watches well, and there opens to it the serene depth of heaven in its own unchanging brightness, calm as ever beyond, uneffaced, undimmed, uninjured by the black earthborn clouds which roll so far below... The Christian is as certain of the truth of what rationalism impugns, as of his own existence. For God who gave him his being gave him also his faith... To choose not to believe is to disbelieve. To halt between two divided ways is to reject God-given truth.' Elsewhere Dr. Pusey has said that personal faith in Jesus was the rock upon which he had taken his stand.' From such an one we might have expected a more ecclesiastical sentence; but in the goodness of God we find men in advance of their own principles. With all his misconception of the Church, Dr. Pusey had a real love for God's Word. Romanist champions could never count him an ally in their foul work of denying the sufficiency of the English Protestant Bible. May those whose views of truth have been shaped by this eminent man still hold fast to the sentiment with respect to the Bible that does pervade his best followers, evidence of which is borne by ten precious pages (87-97) of Dr. Littledale's recent little book 'upon the errors of Rome. Dr. Döllinger might well be struck, as it appears he was on visiting our land, with the presence of a Bible in every household as a distinguishing feature of English life.
W. H. Lowe's Commentary on Zechariah. This is probably the best student's commentary on any Book of the Old Testament. The writer is a Lecturer upon Hebrew in the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Robert Lowth's Lectures on Hebrew Poetry (1753) possess a permanent value. He was the first to explain the true structure of the poetical passages by what he called parallelism of the members.' The rules framed by this learned man have met with general acceptance, and seldom fail to throw light upon the meaning of the most obscure line of poetry in the Hebrew Bible. His work has taken hold of the German mind much more than Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry' has aroused enthusiasm amongst English students.
Lowth's Commentary on Isaiah has long been superseded: few of his conjectural emendations of the Text would now be upheld.
Many old critical opinions, such as Horsley's, still not without advocates, would be found in Barrett's Synopsis of Criticism upon those passages of the Old Testament in which modern Commentators have differed from the Authorized Version' (1847).
Still older opinion may be gathered from Rosen-mailer's Scholia ' (1827 35) or Matthew Poole's Synopsis Criticorum ' (1669). Rosenmüller has so exhausted all that is good in early sources that Phillips (Commentary on the Psalms) calls him a mere plagiarist.
Venema's Commentaries or Dissertations on Genesis, Psalms, Jeremiah, Daniel, Malachi (1745-1765), besides some Lectures on Ezekiel (1790), are useful for the old Protestant opinions.
Roman Catholic opinion may be ascertained from the works of Cornelius a Lapide, of the Society of Jesus and Professor at Louvain. He wrote commentaries upon nearly the whole of the Old Testament (1616-1645).
The new Encylopædia of Schaff (based upon Herzog), two volumes of which have just appeared, will probably take a high place amongst standard works of reference in English.
No other short book of reference for general information is so good as the Aids to the Study of the Holy Bible,' published by the Queen's Printers, and serving as a Companion to their Revised English Bible.' In particular, reference may be made with advantage to the articles by Hooker, Tristram, Cheyne, Stainer, Green, Sayce, and Lumby.
In the selection of English books, Bagster's catalogs would be found useful; those of D. Nutt would serve for foreign books. In the latter catalogs the religious belief of the authors may be gathered from symbols attached to their names.
If the reader have not acquainted himself with the following of Mr. J. N. Darby's writings, to some of which reference has here been made, he should do so in connection with Old Testament study.
1. The Irrationalism of Infidelity, being a Reply to Mr. F. W. Newman's Phases of Faith.' It may not be known to all readers of Mr. Newman's book that the 'Irish Clergyman' of whom he speaks was Mr. Darby himself.
2. Dr. Colenso and the Pentateuch: a tract.
3. Dialogs on Essays and Reviews.'
4. Inspiration of the Scriptures: a tract.
Have we a Revelation from God? In vol. i. of the Bible Witness,' but also published separately. It is a review of an article contributed by Professor W. Robertson Smith to the Encyclopædia Britannica.'
Inspiration and Revelation: a Paper in vol. iii. of the 'Bible Witness.'
§ 3. Conclusion.
This terminates our short survey of an immense subject. Will not the reader, with the writer, feel how very little he yet knows amidst what there is to learn? We might well wish that all the labor employed upon other subjects could be diverted into one or other of the many fields of Biblical criticism, connected as this is with the foundations of the faith once delivered to the saints. We may ever remember that our faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Few are they, however, that dig deep enough. Some doubtless are deterred by thinking only of the pitfalls that beset the study. In our own researches, when examining the materials supplied by others, we have ofttimes been obliged to discriminate between precious' and 'vile,' between what is certain and what is dubious or false. But some there are who know not the treasures that lie before them. We need a subject spirit; our inquiries otherwise can only be hurtful to our own character. Knowledge in itself, without love, puffeth up: so wrote to Christians versed in criticism one to whose profound learning a Jewish ruler of practiced intelligence bore testimony. How painful and yet how instructive the contrast between the godless prince on the throne and the blessed apostle in his bonds!
Let the reader consider well the way in which to take up these inspired writings of the Old Testament, if on the one hand he seek nourishment for his soul and guidance for his conscience, and on the other would provide himself with means of facing the malign attacks of unbelief upon the oracles of God ' (Rom. 3:22Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. (Romans 3:2)). He may indeed find in these pages material for answering questions which he must have asked himself; and after the perusal of this rapid sketch, may feel his interest in the earlier collection of Scriptures quickened, his love for the Old Testament deepened, if he recognize better the rich inheritance of these many centuries, which itself shall never pass away. These Scriptures are they which testify of Me,' said the Savior. He used a book of Jewish antiquity, obnoxious to all manner of skeptics, to prove for others besides Jews that, By every [word] that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live' (Deut. 8:33And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. (Deuteronomy 8:3)). But the reader needs to take care that he become not a hewer of wood and drawer of water. Let him remember that to obtain an acquaintance with the mere letter of the Old Testament or, it may be, with material for Apologetics,' is to engage in worse than barren labor: no one ever yet was made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven by such means, or, when already a disciple, grew in grace by the nourishment such studies by themselves afford. Many engaging in these pursuits have run well for a time who became victims of their vain self-confidence. If we take heed to every precept of God, by conformity in our path, we may, but then only, understand everything: our moral state determines our actual intelligence (Prov. 28:55Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things. (Proverbs 28:5)). If His word find a place in our hearts, the Old Testament cannot fail to shed its own light upon what we need to know; and if in such spirit we use the New Testament, the key wherewith to unlock this treasury of truth, we shall, as heaven-taught scribes, bring forth out of our treasure things new and old.
Finally, as says the Preface to the Authorized Version of our English Bible: Gentle reader, it remaineth that we commend thee to God, and to the Spirit of his grace, which is able to build further than we can ask or think. He removeth the scales from our eyes, the veil from our hearts, opening our wits, that we may understand his word, enlarging our hearts, yea correcting our affections, that we may love it above gold and silver, yea that we may love it to the end.'