What is the most accurate Bible translation?

I beg my reader who may not know Greek not to suppose that I have any thought of unsettling his mind as to the plain English words in scripture. My object is just the contrary. In the English Bible, there are no doubt defects, as in every human work. I have found passages which I think might be more exactly translated, and have taken the pains to translate for myself the whole of the New Testament, save a few chapters. But I am sure of this, that the more intimately a person is acquainted with the idiom of the language — the more he is familiar with what the learned call the usus loquendi (that is, the customary forms of speech) — the more he will see how thoroughly well acquainted the translators were with the language they were dealing with. I can confidently affirm this to be the case in the New Testament; and as far as I can pretend to judge of the Old, I can bear the same testimony: so that, on the whole, while admitting some human defects, the reader who knows neither Hebrew nor Greek may be assured he has the sense of the original. Taken as a whole, it is the most perfect translation of any book I have ever read. I am told the Dutch translation is very good: I cannot compare them, but of those which I can, the English Bible is by far the best. Forty-six or forty-eight of the most learned and capable men were long engaged in it — divided into classes of six, who did the part they were most competent for; and then it was passed to the others, and revised by all, and compared with translations in other languages. My object then is, not to lead you away from your English Bible, but back to it with confidence. When persons object to a doctrine, that the original word has not the force ascribed to it in English, one is obliged to enquire what is its force in the original: but my object in this is that the humble English reader may be assured he has God's mind in what he reads. I add the Greek quotations, that those who know that language may see all is well founded and fair.

From the instances brought forward, want of space alone necessitating a selection, it will be seen that our English version is decidedly in need of amendment. How that may best be accomplished is not the subject before us; but if we dwell for a time on its defects, we must not shut our eyes to its excellencies. It has been pronounced, and with truth, as a whole, the best of modern versions. For it we have much cause to thank God. Compared with the Douay version, made for Roman Catholics in England, how great is the difference, how immense its superiority; but if it can be improved by being made a more faithful translation of the originals, shall we refuse to see its deficiencies? Surely the translators, were they now alive, would desire nothing else than that their defects should be amended, and the word of the living God, which they sought to convey to the English reader, be as accurately rendered as possible. But if a revision be undertaken, it should be of a text based on MS. authority. It must be of the Hebrew and Chaldee, read with points; and it must proceed on the understanding that it will as faithfully as possible — the idioms of the languages being duly considered — translate the text, remembering that the business of a translator is to convey the meaning of what the author wrote, and not what he thinks he should have written. The tenses of verbs, and the numbers of nouns, should be carefully attended to. In this our translators have failed, forgetting at times that the work of a translator is to translate the text — the business of the teacher to expound it. These two offices should be kept distinct. Were this work carried out efficiently, many passages might undergo a slight change, familiar words and phrases might disappear, portions of the prophetical parts might be greatly altered, and the poetical writings emerge from the pen of the translator in places almost wholly recast. How differently, for instance, the song of Deborah would read, if translated from the Hebrew afresh, with all the light we now possess regarding the meaning of the terms the prophetess employed. But if with these changes we felt sure we had approached more closely to the meaning of the Spirit of God, we should gain and not lose. In the meantime passages may well be examined, and suggested improvements canvassed.

If, in the translation, minor inaccuracies have occurred, these may be generally found and corrected by honest study. Of course, it is important that one should have a reliable translation, and we may be deeply thankful that the King James Version has been for centuries most prominent in English speaking countries, for in the main it is an excellent translation. A very few others will be helpful however, in giving a more correct rendering in certain passages, and this is advisable for study purposes. But many of the modern translations, and all paraphrased versions, should be avoided. For careful study, the New Translation by J.N. Darby is highly recommended.

Quant aux choix qu’a fait M. Rilliet du manuscrit appelé: “Codex Vaticanus”, ce manuscrit est non seulement l’un des plus anciens, mais un des meilleurs de tous. Il appartient à la famille dite “alexandrine”. Or, le résultat général des travaux critiques tend à faire adopter les leçons alexandrines comme celles qui se rapprochent le plus du texte original. Elles sont d’ailleurs, en général, confirmées par les anciennes versions. Plusieurs critiques, qui, comme Scholz, ont commencé par donner la préférence aux manuscrits appelés byzantins, ont fini par abandonner plus ou moins le système qu’ils avaient adopté. L’évidence interne, dans un grand nombre de cas, a justifié leur décision; c’est ce qui explique l’accord assez général qui existe entre les éditions modernes du texte grec. Or, les traductions reproduiront nécessairement cet accord en ce qui concerne les variantes.

La version de M. Rilliet a été faite sur le manuscrit du Vatican du quatrième siècle, reconnu comme le plus ancien de tous après celui du Sinaï. Elle est accompagnée de notes nombreuses où se trouvent les leçons de plusieurs autres manuscrits à lettres onciales, ainsi que celles de versions anciennes. M. Rilliet, comme il nous le dit dans sa préface, n’a pas voulu s’aventurer à décider quel manuscrit faisait autorité pour telle ou telle leçon; mais, en indiquant les variantes, il fournit à ses lecteurs le moyen de le faire. Il a préféré traduire un texte réel, le plus ancien qui fût alors connu, mais il fait avec justesse cette remarque: “Nous ne pouvions, en effet, accorder à un manuscrit unique, quelle que fût son antiquité, la prérogative de représenter, à lui tout seul, le texte des premiers siècles, ni laisser croire que, par une vénération mal entendue, nous voyions en lui le type exclusif de ce texte original qu’il n’est plus possible de reproduire dans sa native intégrité. Le manuscrit du Vatican est une autorité qui peut et qui doit, par conséquent, être contrôlée”.

184 We now think we have given sufficient information as to the object before us in this translation, the means therein employed, and finally the way and method in which various passages are translated.* In publishing our work, we commend it heartily, and with confidence, not for the first time, to Him from whom alone blessing comes, and whose approval is worth more than that of all men. We by no means presume to look upon our book as free from errors, but we hope it will be of some use to every upright and christian reader. Our aim has been exactitude throughout, and we have therefore, as before remarked (while making use of several translations, in order to find suitable expressions, and to arrive at the force of the passages in question), from the beginning to the end, exclusively translated from the original Greek. Should anyone think it worth while, either privately or publicly, to make remarks upon any errors, we shall gladly use them hereafter for the purpose of rendering the word of God as exactly as possible in the German language.

The inspired word, though in Hellenistic Greek, has nothing to fear from the minutest research. The slightest change of construction is instructive; so is the choice of case or number, of comparison or collocation, still more of tense or mood, where more than one might have been employed. The particles and prepositions are never loosely used, any more than the article, but always for the most accurate conveyance of truth rather than for mere rhetoric as often is the case in classical writings. Here it is sought to transfuse the apostolic expression as exactly as one could, even at the risk of shocking ears accustomed to the beautiful smoothness of the Authorized Version, and notwithstanding the fact that there is now a Revised Version open to almost everybody who can read English, the result of united labours on the part of many respected names, few of whom may be themselves quite satisfied, as the mass of intelligent students are less so.

It is certainly possible that we could have clothed some passage into a more beautiful German; only, without being slaves of the words, the thought always guided us that an as faithful rendering of the original text as possible outweighed any other consideration, so much the more as we believe with a perfect conviction in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as the revelation of the infinite wisdom of God and the expression of His gracious character in Christ Jesus.

Seeing, however, that no one is able to grasp the whole extent of this revelation and that there is often a meaning hidden within a sentence that transcends the comprehension of the translator, which is lost in a free translation, but could be discovered in a more exact one through a deeper instruction of the Holy Spirit, it is thus an imperative necessity to reproduce the Word of the original text as it were in a mirror.

It goes without saying that the limit of this exactness cannot be drawn so closely that the sentence which has been translated into another language would thereby lose all intelligibility and consequently remain meaningless.

Thoroughly convinced of the divine inspiration of the scriptures, we have endeavoured in translating them to reproduce as exactly as possible in French, that which God has given us in another language, unknown to the greater part of those who read the Bible. We have rendered the Greek as literally as was consistent with the perspicuity needed for the understanding of what is said. The depth of the word of God is infinite, and the connection that exists between all the parts of the divine mystery is not less admirable; although this mystery is not revealed to us as a whole, for "we know in part and we prophesy in part." Therefore it is that we often meet in the word with expressions that, flowing from the depth of the mystery in the mind of the inspired writers, make us perceive (under divine teaching) the connection of the different parts with each other, and that of each of these parts with the whole. To retain these Greek expressions is sometimes disadvantageous to the style of the version; but, when the clearness of the sentence was not injured by it, we have allowed some to stand which might help the reader to apprehend all the meaning and bearing of what is written in the Greek. In other cases, when the French language would not admit of a literal translation, and where the form of the Greek phrase appeared to contain thoughts that might be more or less lost or modified in the French expression, we have given the literal translation in a note.

Another ground for making the translation as literal as possible was the conviction that it would not be without profit to a reader unacquainted with the original to learn something of the style, the customs, the thoughts and the manners of the writers of the Gospels. For since the heart, as well as the mind, finds food in the word of God, the forms of expression chosen by the writers are not without importance; and by changing them, even if the meaning of the sentence remains unchanged, the sensibilities of the heart's feelings may often be lost. Above all we have been throughout influenced by the deep sense that it was the word of God which occupied us, and we have therefore striven to accomplish our work as intelligibly, and at the same time as literally, as was at all possible, submitting it to the judgment of thoughtful critics.