PRINCIPLES GOVERNING BIBLE TRANSLATION. 49 



the Universities for writing in the vernacular has been adopted 

 for the translation, those who work among the people have 

 found it necessary to make and circulate translations into what 

 is called "colloquial language." The same course has been 

 adopted, because it was found necessary, in Arabic : at present 

 it is confined to the New Testament and to the Gospels in the 

 New Testament, but it is not very likely that it will stop there. 

 In proportion to the extent to which the "colloquial" transla- 

 tion is found easy and intelligible by those to whom the 

 standard translation is difficult and unintelligible, will be their 

 •demand that the process should, for their benefit, be extended 

 to other books of the New Testament and after that to at least 

 the principal books of the Old Testament. 



But this cannot be regarded as a satisfactory solution. It 

 has always been the aim of all engaged in translation of the 

 Bible to have only one version current in each language. The 

 fact of the general use of the Bible in public worship makes 

 this highly desirable, and so the question inevitably arises : 

 which Bible is to be read in church — that one which is generally 

 understood or that one which is admired but not generally 

 understood ? The answer can hardly be doubtful. In China it 

 is, I believe, the Mandarin version which is used in public 

 worship. And if this be so, then that version which is so used 

 must be the standard version. It follows that the principle 

 governing the production of the version which is intended to be 

 the standard version must be that the style to be adopted in it 

 must be one that makes it easily intelligible to the people in 

 general who speak the language into which the translation is 

 being made. 



If ever a translation is to be made which shall effect a com- 

 promise between the two styles, it will have to be the work of 

 native scholars and not of foreigners. 



The questions dealt with hitherto have been somewhat of the 

 nature of subsidiary or preliminary questions, inasmuch as they 

 deal with cases which, though very important, are still special 

 cases. But the Bible has been translated into all the principal 

 languages spoken in the world, and in considering these trans- 

 lations we come to the main question which faces every trans- 

 lator of the Bible — i.e., the extent to which what is called 

 " freedom" in translation is admissible. There is such a thing 

 as a paraphrase as distinguished from a translation. Where 

 does the dividing line fall, and is it possible to lay down any 

 definite principle as to what constitutes a translation and dis- 

 tinguishes it from a paraphrase ? 



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