Rival Bibles
Sir: Richard Luckett's words about the " rough and Aramaically barbarous Greek " of St Mark are very relevant to a paper which I am at the moment preparing for a Biblical conference, and 1 cannot resist making some comment.
It is admitted that St Mark's Gospel is written in a Greek which was nearer to the spoken language of the day than to the artificial literary " Koine." 'But 1 do not think that on that account it should be called rough and barbarous. The vernacular can be used well or it can be used badly. St Mark's Gospel in my opinion uses it on the whole with great skill, felicity and freshness. Not all the rules of classical grammar still apply, but there is fine discrimination in the choice of tenses: many subtle, though unobtrusive, idiomelic touches enliven the style, and the vocabulary is a constant delight.
Dionysius of the Helicarnassus would no doubt have regarded such Greek as " barbarous." But who would want to have the Gospel in the manner of Dionysius, beautiful writer though he is in his own way? It is time that someone should speak up more loudly for the rights of the vernacular and the ancestor of the demotic which after a long struggle has been recognised as the proper vehicle for Modern Greek literature. Unfortunately the benighted Colonels are trying to reimpose the katharevusa, which is the descendant of the hothouse literary Koine. Mr Luchett's " Aramaically " interests me. Does he believe that the Evangelist was " thinking in Aramaic and writing in Greek "? That is a common view, but it does not seem to me tenable. I am convinced that the frequent intrusions of Aramaic idiom are due to actual translation from a written Aramaic original. They are like the Creasians which we find, for example, in the Armenian and Old Slavonic versions and which do not prevent those versions from being masterpieces in their national tonyues.
G. M. Lee 8 Trinity Road, Bedford Sir: Richard Luckett's commentary on the two recent versions of the Bible; the Jerusalem and the New English, was distinguished as is usual with him by sense and sensitivity, clearly written.
He is right in saying that the 'Jerusalem ' has a better reading ' flow ' to it than the 'New English.' I myself would go further and say that almost any version of the Bible is preferable to the New English. There are many instances in it of poor language and wrong scripture: as long as there is in existence the Revised Standard Version (of which there is a Catholic edition) there is no need to read the New English Bible at all. The RSV is the best modern rendering.
One instance I would like to give is where the NE says, "Though I walk through the valley as dark as death I fear no evil." The older versions say " the valley of the shadow of death which, I think, is what David wrote and meant. He means (through) this life — which is the valley of the shadow of death. Indeed, " the valley of the shadow of death "though a longer expression is more accurate than the word 'life' here on earth. This 'life' is an extension of activity whose cessation is imminent at any given second; it is a shadow of death really. Moreover, a merely dark valley is not necessarily of evil content; but evil indisputably acCompanies this 'life.'
Again,11 do not care for the rendering into 'verse form, in the NE, of the long prayers of our 'Lord in the gospel of St John. It is no improvement on the prose-run of other versions: to me,
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