第20章

The third thing which shows their effort at accuracy is their explicit avoidance of uniformity in translating the same word.They tried to put the meaning into English terms.So, as they say, the one word might become either "journeying" or "traveling"; one word might be "thinking" or "supposing," "joy" or "gladness," "eternal" or "everlasting." One of the reasons they give for this is quaint enough to quote.They said they did not think it right to honor some words by giving them a place forever in the Bible, while they virtually said to other equally good words: Get ye hence and be banished forever.They quote a "certaine great philosopher" who said that those logs were happy which became images and were worshiped, while, other logs as good as they were laid behind the fire to be burned.So they sought to use as many English words, familiar in speech and commonly understood, as they might, lest they should impoverish the language, and so lose out of use good words.There is no doubt that in thiseffort both to save the language, and to represent accurately the meaning of the original, they sometimes overdid that avoidance of uniformity.There were times when it would have been well if the words had been more consistently translated.For example, in the epistle of James ii: 2, 3, you have goodly "apparel," vile "raiment," and gay "clothing," all translating one Greek word.Our revised versions have sought to correct such inconsistencies.But it was all done in the interest of an accuracy that should yet not be a slavish uniformity.

This will be enough to illustrate what was meant in speaking of the effort of the translators to achieve accuracy in their version.

III.The third marked trait of the work as a version of the Scripture is its striking blending of dignity and popularity in its language.At any period of a living language, there are three levels of speech.There is an upper level used by the clearest thinkers and most careful writers, always correct according to the laws of the language, generally somewhat remote from common life--the habitual speech of the more intellectual.There is also the lower level used by the least intellectual, frequently incorrect according to the laws of the language, rough, containing what we now call "slang," the talk of a knot of men on the street corner waiting for a new bulletin of a ball game, cheap in words, impoverished in synonyms, using one word to express any number of ideas, as slang always does.Those two levels are really farther apart than we are apt to realize.A book or an article on the upper level will be uninteresting and unintelligible to the people on the lower level.And a book in the language of the lower level is offensive and disgusting to those of the upper level.That is not because the ideas are so remote, but because the characteristic expressions are almost unfamiliar to the people of the different levels.The more thoughtful people read the abler journals of the day; they read the editorials or the more extended articles; they read also the great literature.If they take up the sporting page of a newspaper to read the account of a ball game written in the style of the lower level of thought, where words are misused in disregard of the laws of the language, and where one word is made to do duty for a great many ideas, they do it solely for amusement.They could never think of finding their mental stimulus in that sort ofthing.On the other hand, there are people who find in that kind of reading their real interest.If they should take up a thoughtful editorial or a book of essays, they would not know what the words mean in the connection in which they are used.They speak a good deal about the vividness of this lower-level language, about its popularity; they speak with a sneer about the stiffness and dignity of that upper level.

These are, however, only the two extremes, for there is always a middle level where move words common to both, where are avoided the words peculiar to each.It is the language that most people speak.It is the language of the street, and also of the study, of the parlor, and of the shop.But it has little that is peculiar to either of those other levels, or to any one place where a man may live his life and do his talking.If we illustrate from other literature, we can say that Macaulay's essays move on the upper level, and that much of the so-called popular literature of our day moves on the lower level, while Dickens moves on the middle level, which means that men whose habitual language is that of the upper and the lower levels can both enter into the spirit of his writing.

Now, originally the Bible moved on that middle level.It was a colloquial book.The languages in which it first appeared were not in the classic forms.They are the languages of the streets where they were written.The Hebrew is almost our only example of the tongue at its period, but it is not a literary language in any case.The Greek of the New Testament is not the Eolic, the language of the lyrics of Sappho; nor the Doric, the language of war-songs or the chorus in the drama; nor the Ionic, the dialect of epic poetry; but the Attic Greek, and a corrupted form of that, a form corrupted by use in the streets and in the markets.

That was the original language of the Bible, a colloquial language.But that fact does not determine the translation.Whether it shall be put into the English language on the upper level or on the lower level is not so readily determined.Efforts have been made to put it into the language of each level.We have a so- called elegant translation, and we have the Bible cast into the speech of the common day.The King James version is on the middle level.It is a striking blending of the dignity of the upper level and the popularity of the lower level.