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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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own Authorized Version have fallen irito many arid gross mistakes . What can , for instance , be more absurd than to render a word , which has uniformly one and the same meaning in the original , sometimes by a man , and at other times by a perfect non-descript ?
Or can any thing be more ridiculous than to apply a particular meaning to a word in one single passage , which it does not bear in any other throughout the Bible ; and by the adoption of which that very individual passage is rendered unintelligible , or becomes
downright nonsense ? In proof of what is here alleged against the current Authorized Versions , including our own , I shall content myself with only three quotations from Mr . Bellamy ' s translation of the Pentateuch , and those too , taken indiscriminately from
the book of Genesis , leaving your readers to decide whether by adhering to the rule condemned by Professor Lee , of suffering the Bible ( of course in the original ) to be its own interpreter , Mr . Bellamy has done more for the cause of truth , or those who have abandoned and now imjmgn it .
Much has been said on the subject of angels * ' In the original , as well as in all modern Versions , they are represented as men ; thiat is , they are seen in the shape and form of men ; they touch and are touched ; they hear and talk , eat and drink , and perform the various functions incident to
humanity y and yet the idea of their being something more than men will be found to prevail amongst the generality of English readers of our Bible ; so that , whilst your good angel is supposed to bear the form of a youth with wings attached to his shoulders ,
( a sort of noii-descript , forming in the poet ' s eye a link between man and birds , ) an evil one figures away as a grinning monster , with cloven foot , and , in the Linnsean phrase , cauda tenui elongatk ( exhibiting a similar poetical link between man and quadrupeds ) . The Hebrew uniformly
adopts the word ~ JK 7 O which , in defiance of Henderson ' s rule , has been arbitrarily rendered by our translators in some places by angel , and in others by messenger . Mr . Bellamy ' s Version rejects the unintelligible word angel throughout j and in luminous notes on chap . xiL 8 , and xviii . 2 ,
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he satisfactorily shews , that the Hebrew tertai never lias any other meaning than that of a human messenger , but that , according to circumstances , easily gathered from the context , it is frequently used for a messenger of God , i . e . a human messenger ( the
officiating priest ) dispatched from the place where the divine cominunieaition was given by God , to issue or execute his commands . Accordingly , " the angel of the Lord" who , in our Authorized Version , found Hagar in the wilderness , and informed her of
the Almighty ' s intentions respecting her posterity , is called by Bellamy , " the messenger of Jehovah ; " and the " two angels" who , according to the same translation , ( chap , xix ., )
arrived towards evening , per pedes apostolorum , at Sodom , and joined in " a feast / 1 are simply styled " two messengers" by Bellamy , whose important errand , however , is sufficiently ex ^ plained in the succeeding verses .
Again , who that has read only the English Bible , and has chanced to meet with the productions of Voltaire and others of the same stamp , but must have sighed at the authorized version of Gen . ii . 21 , 22 ? Let such
a person take up Mr . Bellamy's Translation of the Pentateuch , and he will at least find a meaning attached to
this passage in the original , which , as it does not reflect on the Creator , has undoubtedly probability to favour it . Let him further be informed that the Hebrew word # *? ¥ is no where else , even in our Authorized Version ,
translated by rib than In this single passage , but means side : let him , at the same time , bear in mind that the same Hebrew verb and preposition which are here rendered took of , or from , are in our said Authorized Version
translated , in other places , by drought to ; and , lastly , that nJnnn , in the Authorized Version rendered by in * - stead thereofi is in the same Version ( Zach . xii . 6 ) given by in her own place ; — and surely he will gladly
allow that the old Canon oi suffering the Bible to interpret itself , is , after all , the best . In strict conformity with it , and supported even by our Authorized Version , as already shewn , Bellamy renders the 21 st verse thus : 4 ( Now Jehovah God caused an inactive state to fall upon the man , and
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Pfofessrr Lee , Dr . Henderson and Mr . Bellamy . 91
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 91, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/27/
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