SACRED WRITINGS 1860 OF THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS OF JESUS CHRIST, COMMONLY STYLED THE NEW TESTAMENT. TRANSLATED FROM THIE Original Greek, BY DOCTORS GEORGE CAMPBELL, JAMES MACKNIGHT AND WITH PREFACES, VARIOUS EMENDATIONS, AND AN APPENDIX BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. Stereotyped from the third Edition revised CINCINNATI: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY H. S. BOSWORTH. BS 2095 WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, to wit: Be it remembered, that on the sixth day of August, Anno Domini, 1832, Alexander Campbell, of the said District, hath deposited in this Office the Title of a book, the title of which is in the words following, to wit: "The Sacred Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ, commonly styled the New Testament. Translated from the original Greek, by Doctors George Campbell, James Macknight, and Philip Doddridge. With Prefaces, various Emendations, and an Appendix taining various Translations of difficult Passages, some Critical Notes on the Language, Geography, Chronology, and History, of the New Testament; aud Miscellaneous Tables, designed to aid every candid Reader of the Volume in acquiring a satisiactory knowledge. of its contents. By Alexander Campbell. Third Edition, revised and enlarged." the right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in conformity to an Act of Congress, entitled an Act to amend the several Acts respecting Copyrights JASPER YEATES DODDRIDGE, Clerk of the Weston District of Virginia. 1, Jasper Yeates Doddridge, Clerk of the United States' Court for the Western District of Virginia, hereby certify, that the foregoing is a true copy of a Copyright, as the same is duly of record in my Office. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto subscribed my name and affixed the Seal of the said Court at Clarksburg, this sixth day of L. S.] August, in the year of our Lord 1832, and in the 57th year f the independence of the United States of America. J. Y. DODDRIDGE, Clerk. S'ereotyped by J. A. Jamcs. Cincinnati. GENERAL PREFACE. AN APOLOGY FOR A NEW TRANSLATION. A LIVING language is continually changing. Like the fashions and customs in apparel, words and phrases at one time current and fashionable, in the lapse of time become awkward and obsolete. But this is not all. Many of them, in a century or two, come to have a signification very dif ferent from that which was once attached to them. Nay, some are known to convey ideas not only different from, but contrary to, their first signification. And were it not for books and parchments which preserve, from one generation to another, the language of the dead, and transmit, from father to son, the words and sentences of past times; it is not improbable that, in one generation, a living language would undergo as many mutations, and admit of as many innovations, as it now does in two or three hundred years. Books, written in a style that obtains the reputa. tion of being both correct and elegant, serve to give stability to language. They are to language, what strong-holds and fortresses are to a country. Yet even these the cankering hand of time moulders away, and they cease to be a defence against invasion and revolution. And books, how ever reputable as the standard of a living tongue, and however much read and admired, are unable to maintain a long controversy against the versatility and love of novelty, characteristic of the human mind. In attempting to trace the finger of God employed in preparing the way, for the introduction and consummation of a perfect revelation, some wise and learned men have thought, that the wisdom and benevolence which appear in all the divine procedure towards man, were never more conspicuously displayed, than in causing the completion of the Jewish and Christian writings, to precede but a little time the death of the Hebrew and Greek languages. Both languages had been consummated before the revelation was entrusted to them; and, that they might continue immutable and faithful guardians of a repository so precious and sacred; that they might become immortal conservators of the New Institution, sealed by the blood of the Son of God, they died. We have, in writing, all the Hebrew and Greek that necessary to perpetuate to the end of time, all the ideas which the Spirit of God has communicated to the world. and these languages being dead have long since ceased to change. The meaning of the words used by the sacred penmen is fixed and immutable; which it could not have been, had these languages continued to be spoken.* But this constant mutation in a living language will probably render new translations, or corrections of old translations, necessary every two or three hundred years. For although the English tongue may have changed less during the last two hundred years than it ever did in the same lapse of time before; yet the changes which have taken place since the reign of James I. do now render a new translation necessary. For if the King's translators had given a translation every way faithful and correct, in the language then spoken in Britain, the changes in the English language which have since been introduced, would render that translation in many instances incorrect. The truth of this assumption will appear from a few specifications. In the second Epistle to Corinth, (viii. 1.) common ver. sion, Paul says, "We do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed upon the churches of Macedonia." This was, O doubt, a correct and intelligible rendering of the Greek words Tvog Comey de unir to the people of that day, but to us it is as unintelligible as the Greek original. How few are there who can translate "We do you to wit," by We cause you to know? which is the modern English of the above sentence. The same may be observed of the term "wot" in all places where it occurs. The term "conversation" was a very exact rendering of the term Avasleop in that day, as the old statutes and laws of England attest; but it is now a very incorrect one. It then signified what a person did; it now denotes what a person says. Then it was equivalent to our word behavior, but now it is confined to what proceeds from the lips; consequently all those passages are now mistranslated in which this term occurs: such as 1 Peter, ii. 12. "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles." Galatians, i. 13. "You have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion." James iii. 13. "Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom." Excepting Phil. i. 27. iii. 20. and Heb. xiii. 5. in every other *That Hebrew and Greek which are now spoken are not the languages of the Jewish Prophets and the Christian Apostles. It is true much analogy exists between them. But the modern Italian is not more unlike the nervous Roman which Cicero spoke, than the modern Hebrew and Greek are unlike the language of Isaiah, and that of Luke and Paul. place where the word conversation occurs in the common version, it is Avasleoon in Greek; and in our modern style it is always a mistranslation. In all those places substitute the term behavior, and then we have an exact translation into the language which we speak. We shall next instance the term "double-minded," which was a very literal translation of the word Auxos; but the term "double-minded," if, in the days of King James, it denoted a person who sometimes leaned to one opinion and sometimes to another, has come to denote a quite dif ferent character. It now, as defined by Johnson, signifies a deceitful or an insidious person. To say that a deceitful person is unstable in all his ways, as the Apostle says of the double-minded man, is not only a mistranslation in our style, but conveys a false idea to the reader: for, while "a man of two minds" is unstable in all his ways, it is very far from fact to say, that "a deceitful man is unstable in all his ways." But not to be tedious on this subject, we shall only adduce another specification of this kind. 1 Thess. iv. 15. "We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep." The word "prevent" did, in that day, exactly translate davw. used transitively; but now it does not. For then "prevent" was used as synonimous with anticipate or outstrip; but now it is commonly used as equivalent to hinder. Hence, we have found many unable to understand this important declaration of Paul to the Thessalonians. They supposed that Paul was assuring them that those who should be alive upon the earth, at the coming of the Lord to judge the world, would not hinder the resurrection and glorious change of the dead saints. But how different the ideas communicated by the Apostle, when a proper substitute for the term "prevent" is found; such as the word anticipate or outstrip! Then it reads, "We which are alive at the coming of the Lord will not anticipate the dead"-we will not be changed an instant sooner than they. The living and dead saints at the same moment shall be glorified together. In the common version the word "prevent" and its derivatives occur frequently, and are mistranslations owing to the change in the use and meaning of words which has since that time occurred. Such are the following: "The God of my mercy shall prevent ine"-"Let thy mercies speedily prevent us"-"I prevented the dawning of the morning""Mine eyes prevented the night watches""Jesus prevented him, saying, Simon, of whom do the Kings of the earth take tribute?" and sundry other places |