PRINCIPLES GOVERNING BIBLE TRANSLATION. 



covenant — was not English, and that it needed the addition of 

 Bevera] words to express the relation intended between "the 

 blood " and " the covenant." 



The additions in these cases are made necessary by difference 

 of idiom in the two languages in question, but the danger 

 attending them is obvious; the additional words fix upon the 

 passage one of several possible meanings : that meaning is the 

 one chosen by the translator, but it passes into the text, and 

 where (as is generally the case) there is nothing to distinguish 

 this part of the text from any other the reader has no means of 

 knowing that part of what he finds in the book is merely the 

 translators opinion on a point on which opinions may well 

 differ. 



It seems to follow that, while such additions may be, and 

 indeed must be, admitted into the text, there should always be 

 a marginal note giving a literal translation of the original. 



The considerations which have just been described make it 

 necessary that such additions of words should be rigidly 

 limited to the cases in which they are really inherent in the 

 original. But, in fact, they have often been made in cases in 

 which they merely help to make the meaning clearer or more 

 definite. Such additions appear to be quite illegitimate. The 

 following instances may serve to illustrate the writer's mean- 

 ing : — Dr. Weymouth (The New Testament in Modern Speech) 

 translates Mark i, 38 : " He replied, ' Let us go elsewhere to the 

 neighbouring country towns, that I may proclaim my errand 

 there also : for for that purpose I came from God.' " The 

 words — from God — are an addition. The A.Y. and K.V. have : 

 — " For therefore (E.V. to this end) came I forth." 



It is possible that Dr. Weymouth has given the true mean- 

 ing, but it is certainly not inherent in the Greek word 

 (igfjXOov). 



Dr. Moffatt (The New Testament : A Nan Translation) 

 translates it : — " That is why I came out here," so that competent 

 scholars differ on the point, and this seems to make the inser- 

 tion inadmissible. 



Another instance is the case of Abraham looking upon the 

 scene of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The narra- 

 tive says (Genesis xix, 28), "And Abraham looked toward 

 Sodom and Gomorrah." We are told that the Hebrew word 

 means " looked down," and a translator has therefore rendered 

 the passage, "Abraham looked down from a mountain," inserting 

 the words " from a mountain." No doubt if Abraham looked 

 down upon the plain where Sodom and Gomorrah stood, he 



