MODERNISING THE BIBLE [To the Editor, of THE SPECTATOR.] $ra,—In
his notes in last week's Spectator, " Janus" refers to a new edition of the Bible, which is shortly to be expected, to be printed in paragraphs without divisions of chapter and verse, and mentions in this connexion several well-known translations of the Old and New Testaments into more modern language than that of the Authorised Version.
I am surprised that he makes no reference to the well-known Modem Reader's Bible, edited by Dr. R. G. Moulton, in which the whole Bible and several books of the Apocrypha are printed in paragraphs, with headings, not broken up into chapters and verses, in addition to which are very valuable and scholarly prolegomena and notes dealing with the history, and interpretation of the various Books.
Further, a literary edition of the Bible was published only two years ago in New York, entitled The Bible Designed to be Read as Living Literature, arranged and edited by Ernest Sutherland Bates. The editor explains that the arrangement of the Books is " by time and subject matter "; " prose passages are printed as prose, verse as verse, drama as drama,
lett tt
ers as leers, punctuation and spelling are modernised." A -number of Books are omitted, including the whole of Chronicles, " the minor Epistles, and similar unimportant passages throughout " ; all genealogies and repetitions are similarly omitted.
The object of the edition is stated to be to afford a con- secutive narrative, with the Apocryphal I Maccabees, empha- sising, in the editor's words, the greatest of the Prophets and minimising the others.
Mr. Bates deals very freely with some of the Books, and there are considerable abbreviations, omissions and rearrange- ments of them, with the avowed intention of presenting the Bible in a new light to persons who view it primarily as litera- ture and are less occupied with dogma. The volume is excel- lently produced as regards format and type, the translation adopted in most of the Books being that of the Authorised Version. - •- Many of us may regard these selections and arrangements- " not all the Bible, but the best of it "—as arbitrary, if not sometimes fanciful ; but we may well welcome anything that will conduce to a wider reading and understanding of Holy
Scripture.--Yours faithfully, TRAVERS BUXTON. .72 Cambridge Square, Hyde Park, W. 2.
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