The Future of Bible Study Is Here.
Page xxvi
that they have gone so far wrong. On the other hand, he will perhaps feel disposed to complain that so many of these marginal notes assign a sense to the sacred record which cannot possibly be accepted as true. Some of these, no doubt, are taken either from the text or margin of the Bishops’ Bible, which had been read in Churches for about forty years when the Authorized Version was made, and which King James had expressly directed “to be followed, and as little altered as the truth of the original will permit.” But far the greater part must be traced to another source, to which adequate attention has not yet been directed. Of the several Latin translations of the Old Testament which were executed in the sixteenth century, that which was the joint work of Immanuel Tremellius [1510–80], a converted Jew (the proselyte first of Cardinal Pole, then of Peter Martyr), who became Professor of Divinity at Heidelberg, and of his son-in-law Francis Junius [1545–1602], was at once the latest and the most excellent. Originally published in 1575–9, and revised in 1590 after the death of Tremellius by Junius, who added a version of the Apocrypha of which he was the sole author, a large edition printed in London in 1593 soon caused it to become very highly esteemed in this country for its perspicuity and general faithfulness. One great fault it has, a marked tendency, in passages either obscure in themselves, or suggesting some degree of difficulty, to wander into new paths of interpretation, wherein it ought to have found few to follow or commend it. This version must have lain open before the Translators throughout the whole course of their labours: it has led them into some of the most conspicuous errors that occur in their text (2 Chr. xx. 1; Job xxxiv. 33), while as regards the margin, whensoever a rendering is met with violently harsh, inverted, or otherwise unlikely, its origin may be sought, almost with a moral certainty of finding it, in the pages of Tremellius and Junius. These statements are made with reference to every part of the Old Testament (e.g. Gen. xl. 13, 16, 19, 20. Ex. xvii. 16; xxix. 43. Judg. ix. 31. 2 Sam. i. 9; xxi. 8), but, for the sake of brevity, the proof of them shall be drawn from one distinct portion, the books of the Minor Prophets. To these authorities solely, so far as the writer has observed, are due the supplying of “for nought” in Mal. i. 10, and the textual rendering of Mal. ii. 16: as are also the following marginal notes, scattered among others of a widely different type: Hos. i. 6; 10 (“instead of that”); vi. 4 (“kindness”); x. 10; xii. 8 (“all my labours,” &c.); xiv. 2. Joel iii. 21. Amos iv. 3; v. 22; vii. 2. Obad. 7 (“of it”). Mic. vii. 13. Nah. i. 12; iii. 19. Hab. i. 7; ii. 11 (second). Zeph. iii. 1. Zech. v. 3; ix. 15 (twice); 17 (“speak”); x. 2; xi. 16 (second); xii. 5; xiv. 5; 14 (first). Mal. i. 13; ii. 9 (but ἐδυσωπεῖσθε πρόσωπα Sym.), 11.
Hitherto no marginal notes have been taken into consideration except those given in the primary issues of 1611; but 368 others have been subsequently inserted by various hands, which are distinguished from those of earlier date in the present volume by being printed within brackets. Of these the Cambridge folio of 1629 contributes that on Jer. iii. 19; the folio of 1638 that on Ezek. xlviii. 1: thirty-one others were inserted in the course of the century that followed, viz. 1 Kin. xxii. 41, 51. 2 Kin. i. 17; viii. 16; ix. 29; xiii. 9, 10; xiv. 23, 29; xv. 1, 8, 10; 30 (bis), 37; xvii. 1; xxiii. 23. 2 Chr. xx. 36; xxi. 1, 3, 5, 12, 18. Job i. 1. Ps. xi. 6. Dan. i. 21; xi. 7, 10, 25. Hos. vii. 7; xiii. 16: as many as 269 are due to Dr Paris (1762), and 66 to Dr Blayney (1769), who is usually credited with them all. Many of them are not destitute of a certain value (especially such explanations relating to Proper names as we see in Gen. ii. 23)1, although a persistent resolution to set right the regnal years of the Jewish kings, commenced in 1701, and fully carried out in 1762, leads on their authors to expedients which are at times rather daring than satisfactory: e.g. 2 Kin. xv. 1; 30. The American revisers of 1851 (see p. xxiii.) not unreasonably condemned notes like these, and those on Judg. iii. 31; xi. 29; xii. 8, 11, 13; xiii. 1; xv. 20 (all from the Bible of 1762), as “containing merely conjectural and unwarranted commentary,” and expunged them accordingly from the margin of their book; but they all came back again with the other restorations which public opinion forced upon the New York Bible Society. In one instance (Dan. ix. 27) Dr Paris has ventured to substitute a marginal rendering of his own in the place of that of 1611 (“Or, with the abominable armies”), and has been followed by all modern
| 1 | The first of these later marginal notes that occurs (Gen. i. 20, † Heb. let fowl fly) is taken from the Geneva Bible (1560), and seems as good as most of its date—1762. |
Sign Up to Use Our
Free Bible Study Tools
|
By registering for an account, you agree to Logos’ Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
|