Bible in Translation, The: Ancient and English Versions by Bruce M. Metzger

Author:Bruce M. Metzger [Metzger, Bruce M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780801022821
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2001-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

The Twentieth Century New Testament (1901; 1904)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a modern English version of the New Testament was published on both sides of the Atlantic with the title The Twentieth Century New Testament: A Translation into Modern English Made from the Original Greek (Westcott and Hort’s Text). The introduction stated that it was the work of a “company of about twenty persons, members of various sections of the Christian Church.” The translation, which was published anonymously, began to appear in 1898, coming out in three parts. In 1901 the parts were issued in a single volume by Horace Marshall of London, and in America by the Fleming H. Revell Company. This was identified as a “Tentative Edition,” and criticisms and suggestions were welcomed.

In 1904 appeared the “permanent edition,” so called in a note, though on the title page it is called the “Revised Edition.” There are differences between the two editions in almost every verse, usually in the direction of simpler diction. The changes are interesting and show the care bestowed by the translators on this work.

In 1933 the last survivor of the group of translators (so far as is known) deposited the secretary’s records of their work in the John Rylands Library at Manchester. There, some twenty years later, they were consulted by Dr. Kenneth W. Clark, who published a fascinating account entitled “The Making of the Twentieth Century New Testament.”[1] About half of the members of the committee were ministers of various churches, while others were lay people, but none of them belonged to the class of linguistic and textual experts who had produced the Revised Version of 1881–85. They did on occasion consult experts, but the real work was done by themselves. Their translating was motivated by social causes and the desire to convey the Word of God in a plainer English idiom.

The committee had its origin in 1891 when Mrs. Mary Kingsland Higgs, the wife of a Congregational minister living at Oldham near Manchester, began to prepare an idiomatic translation of the Gospel of Mark for her children, who did not understand the language of the traditional English Bible. In another corner of England lived a signal and telegraph engineer, Ernest de Mérindol Malan of Newland, Hull. He was the grandson of a noted Swiss Reformed preacher (Dr. César Malan) and followed the custom of reading the Bible to his children. The family was bilingual, and Malan observed that the modern French version by Lasserre was better understood than was the traditional English.

As it happened, both Mrs. Higgs and Mr. Malan wrote to W. T. Stead, the editor of the Review of Reviews, expressing their desire for a modern English translation of the Scriptures. Stead referred the two correspondents to each other, and they soon began collaboration in translating the Gospel of Mark. As they progressed, they expanded the plan to include the four Gospels and the Book of Acts. To do this they sought to enlist additional partners, and Stead printed

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