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f Mr. Frend y s Proposal of a New Translation of the Bible.
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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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Sir , FTPHE approach of our General An-JL nual Meeting * brings back to my mind the recollection of a plan on
which I have frequently meditated , and if you will permit it to have a place in your interesting pages , we shall be prepared for the discussion and for rejecting or adopting it , as may seem most advisable . To the measure itself
I cannot anticipate any objection : in the execution of it there may be difficulties , but they do not seem to be insurmountable . My plan is , to have guch a translation of the Bible as may
be adopted in our churches ; and to be superintended in such a manner , that it may be open to every improvement that the advancement of learning in the present and future times may contribute towards it .
It is needless to expatiate on the imperfections of the Bible now in general use , much less to intimate a censure on those under whose inspection it was published . The preface to their translation speaks for itself : and no one who reads it , can doubt that ,
if the authors of it were now alive , they would gladly avail themselves of the advantages , which a greater insight into manuscripts , and a more improved criticism , has produced . The translation does honour to the reign of James the First ; and , whatever may have been his faults , his zeal in this
cause entitles him to our respect . The defects in our Bible may be attributed to two causes : the imperfect knowledge of the languages from which the translation was made , and the imperfect state of the text which was adopted as the basis of the work . It is well known how few manuscripts Erasmus had access to when he first
published his Greek Testament , and if he could fill up the lacunae with his own miserable Greek , translated from the Latin , no one in these days can place his text in competition with that which we possess from the labours of Griesbach .
Besides , the Bible in common use is not what it is stated to be in the
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title-page : < The Holy Bible—by his Majesty ' s special Command . " This was its original title , and the command here mentioned , alludes to the command of his Majesty King James ,
and the care he took of future editions . The publishing of the future editions was very properly committed to the king ' s printer and the two Universities ; but it would be difficult now to find an edition of the Bible agreeing with its original . Many alterations
have taken place since that time ; and if all the editions of the Bible now in use in the United Kingdom were collated with any one of them taken as a standard , the various readings would probably amount to many many thousands .
The translation of the Bible , winch I propose , should be without note or comment . Occasionally at the bottom of the page should be a margin , as in Griesbach's Testament , for various
readings in the original text . The division into chapters and verses should be preserved in the margin , with a . very slight mark in the proper places , which should be such as not to divert
the attention of the reader , and occasion that pause , which not unfrequently injures the meaning of the passage . The publication should be in small parts , into which the Bible may be properly divided ; and thus , instead of having one volume , the cottage will
possess the whole , in such a number of parts , that every inhabitant of it may , at the same time , have one for his separate perusal . It should be published in a cheap ? form , due care being taken as to the size and the clearness of the type ..
The execution of the translation I propose to be left to seven persons . These persons shall each mark down what alterations he thinks advisable in the present version : these they shall
interchange with each other , and at a meeting they shall agree on the text to be adopted . Of this text two hundred and fifty copies shall be struck off , to be sent to such persons or puhr .
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THE i
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No . CCXXXII . ] APRIL , 1825 . ' [ Vol . X XT ~
F Mr. Frend Y S Proposal Of A New Translation Of The Bible.
f Mr . Frend s Proposal of a New Translation of the Bible .
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voj , . xx . 2 c
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1825, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2535/page/1/
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