PRINCIPLES GOVERNING lilHLK TRANSLATION. 



59 



principle of his work should be to put his reader, as far as such 

 a fchiDg is possible, in the position of one to whom the language 

 <»!' the original is thoroughly known. So far as the vocabulary 

 and idiom of the language are concerned, he should translate 

 the thought and not the words : so far as the thought depends 

 upon elements outside the language, he should not attempt to 

 embody it in his translation. Least of all should he attempt 

 to re-write his original as it may he supposed that the author 

 would have written it if he had produced it at the time and 

 place in which the translation comes into existence. 



I am far from supposing that these conclusions will as a 

 whole meet with general acceptance. Probably no one who 

 hears or reads them will agree with them all, while every single 

 contention put forward will be likely to find some who dis- 

 approve in that particular. 



lint the work of the translation of the Bible is one of the 

 most vital importance : there are many hundreds of languages 

 into which no part of the Bible has yet been translated ; in 

 very many of those in which something has been done, many 

 more books remain to be dealt with ; and even in those main 

 languages of the world into which the wdiole Bible, or at least 

 the New Testament, has been translated, need is constantly 

 felt for the revision and improvement of existing versions. 



It results that many hundreds of men all over the world are 

 at w 7 ork on this business, often in small bodies isolated from one 

 another, and dealing over and over again with the same 

 problems, in ignorance of the general character of the results 

 which have been arrived at elsewhere. It is therefore very desir- 

 able that an attempt should be made to arrive at some general 

 principles which may be accepted as governing all such under- 

 takings, and it is to the attainment of that object as a result of 

 full consideration and discussion that this paper is intended to 

 contribute. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman agreed with the Lecturer that the Bible was a 

 unique book ; it had indeed been fittingly called " The sacred 

 library." Those who forgot that it was not a single book but a 

 literature missed much. Mr. Sewell had rightly emphasized the 

 difficulties of translation, difficulties which threw into relief the 

 wonderful character of the translation made by Tyndale. In 1845, 

 Bagster brought out a New Testament in which five English 



