PRINCIPLES GOVERNING BIBLE TRANSLATION. 



53 



But some translators have gone further and rendered the 

 phrase: — "He is my Saviour and my God." In so doing, it 

 appears to me that they have stepped over the boundary line 

 between the result of translation and that of explanation or 

 commentary. No doubt the statement — " He is my salvation'" 

 can be explained — "He is the author or cause of my salvation 

 — i.e., my Saviour, but this is an explanation. No doubt, "He is 

 my Saviour and my God" is clearer and more striking than 

 " He is my salvation and my God,"' but this clearness and 

 emphasis is obtained not by rendering but by improving the 

 original. 



To sum up: — It is quite true that it is the business of a 

 translator to translate the thought rather than the words, but 

 he is concerned with the language and with that only. So far 

 as the thought is conveyed by the words, it is his business to 

 convey it, but it is not his business to try and get into his 

 translation everything that the words convey, and to that extent 

 the maxim cannot be adopted as a safe guide. 



Much less is it possible to adopt the principle which has 

 sometimes been laid down that it should be the object of a 

 translator to furnish what we may suppose that the original 

 author would have said if he had been writing in our a^e and 

 country. To do this would not only be more than a translation, 

 more than a paraphrase, more than a commentary, it would be 

 nothing less than to re-write the book. 



A matter cognate to that just discussed is the subject of the 

 insertion of words necessary in one language though not in 

 another for the completion of the sense. A familiar example is 

 that of the copula — is — which is very frequently required in 

 most languages where it is not expressed in Hebrew and Greek. 

 It is, of course, common knowledge that the translators of the 

 English Bible have been very scrupulous in indicating all such, 

 additions by printing the words so added in italic type. A 

 comparison of the Authorized and Ee vised Versions with regard 

 to this matter shows at once that the revisers of the English 

 version did not think it necessary to indicate, in this way, the 

 addition of words absolutely required by English idiom to make 

 the sentence good English. They have inserted the words just 

 as the translators of 1611 did, but they have not in any way 

 indicated their insertion. And this is, no doubt, right. The 

 words which they have added are, according to the practice to 

 which they have scrupulously adhered, not really additions. 

 They are latent in the original languages, the idiom of which 

 did not permit, or did not require, their expression. Their 



