PRINCIPLES GOVERNING BIBLE TRANSLATION. 



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purpose. But kindred races use allied words in different -discs, 

 and no one now would look out a Hebrew word in an Arabic 

 dictionary, and Ass virologists were now much soberer than they 

 were twenty or thirty years ago. 



Dr. Kilgour desired to express his appreciation of a most 

 excellent paper. He had not often an opportunity of saying any- 

 thing about Mr. Sewell, as usually, when they were associated, 

 Mr. Sewell was in the Chair and he was at his side. 



The paper dealt with questions with which the Bible House was 

 continually familiar. The Committee had prepared and printed a 

 pamphlet of rules for the guidance of translators and revisers based 

 upon principles derived from the experience of over a hundred 

 years. These rules were not absolute, as in practice difficult cases 

 would arise, but the main principle was that the translation should 

 be intelligible to the readers; not so much beneath the ordinary 

 spoken language as to lose dignity, nor so much above the heads of 

 the reader as to be misunderstood. In general it was felt that it 

 was safest for the translation to be as literal as the idiom of the 

 language permitted. Even ordinary people would eventually be 

 able to understand the meaning to be conveyed, though perhaps 

 they might not grasp it at first. It was not the common experience 

 that a double version, one for the scholar and another in colloquial 

 language, was necessary ; though there were a few exceptions, as, 

 for example, in China and some parts of India. Translations which 

 at first might appear to be too learned in style were not necessarily 

 beyond the reader. Thus, for example, the translation of the New 

 Testament in Nepali had sometimes been criticized as too scholarly. 

 One young missionary had complained of a particular word, saying 

 he had never heard it used. That very afternoon he heard it 

 in a bazaar • he had simply not come across it earlier. After a 

 translation was finished (and translators should merely translate, 

 they must not comment or give their own ideas), the reader must 

 be left to receive, with the Spirit's help, the deeper meanings of the 

 Word. He believed that from the East especially there would come 

 back to us of the West marvellous experiences of the riches of the 

 Eternal Message. No Bible translation, even though prepared by 

 a committee of natives, could be alone absolutely unmistakable, or at 

 once perfectly understood. We should remember how much we 

 ourselves had learned by trying to understand passages which at 



