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Passing to other translations, we draw attention to one simply entitled "A New
Translation" but known to be the work of J. N. Darby. Every reader would benefit by
carefully reading the Introductory Note and Revised Preface, especially the note on the
problem of rendering the Greek Aorist into English. No one who reads that paragraph
will underestimate the need for extreme caution in accepting "literal" renderings as being
necessarily "true" translations. On the whole J. N. Darby is a wise and careful translator
and the reader will often find great help in consulting him, giving especial heed to any
footnote that may be added to elucidate the matter in hand.
Another Translation that must not be omitted is,
"The New Testament in Modern Speech. An idiomatic translation into everyday
English from the Text of the Resultant Greek Testament." By the late Richard Francies
Weymouth, M.A., D.Litt.
In his preface, Dr. Weymouth says:--
"The translation of the New Testament here offered English-speaking Christians is a
bona fide translation made directly from the Greek and is in no sense a revision.
The plan adopted has been the following:--
1. An earnest endeavour has been made (based upon more than sixty years' study of
both the Greek and English languages, besides much further familiarity gained by
continual teaching) to ascertain the exact meaning of every passage not only by the light
that classical Greek throws on the language used, but also by that which the Septuagint
and Hebrew Scriptures afford . . . . . But in the endeavour to find in Twentieth Century
English a precise equivalent for a Greek word, phrase, or sentence there are two dangers
to be guarded against. There are a Scylla and a Charybdis. One the one hand there is the
English of Society, on the other hand that of the utterly uneducated, each of these patois
having its own special, though expressive, borderland which we name "slang". It is plain
that this attempt to bring out the sense of the Sacred Writings naturally as well as
accurately in present-day English does not permit, except to a limited extent, the method
of literal rendering--the verbo verbum reddere at which Horace shrugs his shoulders.
Dr. Whelldon, recently Bishop of Calcutta, in the preface (p. 7:) to his masterly
translation of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, writes: "I have deliberately rejected
the principle of trying to translate the same Greek word by the same word in English, and
where circumstances seemed to call for it I have sometimes used two English words to
represent one Greek work";--and he is perfectly right. With a slavish literality delicate
shades of meaning for the influence of interwoven thought . . . . . An utterly ignorant or
utterly lazy man, if possessed of a little ingenuity, can with the help of a dictionary and
grammar give a word-for-word rendering, whether intelligible or not, and print
`Translation' on his title page."
Dr. Weymouth refers to his pamphlet "On Rendering into English of the Greek Aorist
and perfect", as a justification for the translation offered. As a sample of this translation,
the following rendering of Rom. 3: 22-24 must suffice.
"No distinction is made, for all alike have sinned, all consciously come short of the
glory of God, gaining acquittal from guilt by His free unpurchased grace through the
deliverance which is found in Christ Jesus."