Dedicated to the memory and work of three giants of twentieth century biblical study: James Moffatt, Edgar J. Goodspeed, and Harry Emerson Fosdick
The paradox of spiritual literature lies in its transmission: the fragile medium of words on which it depends. Its truth must be contained in earthen vessels which the wine within threatens to burst. Or, if you prefer, the medium by which it is recorded is as unstable as shifting sand. Those who specialize in biblical research must constantly deal with such matters as fragmented sources, bias and politicization, authenticity, revision and destruction of earlier manuscripts, and similar challenges. Scriptural language (of whatever tongue or tradition) is an imperfect structure which is subject to interpretation, change, and nuance. This struggle has played out throughout history. For good or bad, it is all we have by which the eternal truth is held. Those who proclaim scriptural inerrancy only delude themselves and paint themselves into a corner by placing their confidence in the printed word which is only a pale representation of the Word. They make it into an idol with limited power and the potential to delude. Equally dismaying is the current crop of head scratching nihilists who worship on the altar of doubt and use their scholastic means to boil down the Gospel to a sort of fiction, turning consideration of the divine into what may resemble a book club. Both approaches fly in the face of truth. There must be a better way.
I am not sure what took me so long, but I stumbled across James Moffatt’s Preface to the Revised and Final Edition of a New Translation of the Bible (1935) which had sat on my bookshelf for years. It was, as you may know, one of several attempts of that era to modernize, correct, and clarify the scriptures. For me (and I am dating myself here) this modernization and clarification began with The New English Bible, first appearing in its New Testament edition. I learned of the earlier translations prior to the explosion of many other contemporary texts which were soon to follow..
It stands to reason that those whose day-to-day business is the art of translation would be acutely aware of the pitfalls of their profession. To claim exactness and certitude is an elusive goal. As previously stated, the Word may be a solid rock but its expression in words is more like shifting sand. This does not detract from its value but, if we are honest, only describes its medium of presentation.
James Moffatt’s translation was contemporary with that by Edgar J. Goodspeed which similarly appeared first in its New Testament publication (1923) and in a complete translation (1939). Moffatt’s preface serves as an introduction and guide to the uniqueness of his version. The editorial methods he uses are of great value in slicing through the pitfalls of scriptural transmission: In presenting his work he gives us a word of warning: “You may be translating oracles, but soon you learn the risk and folly of posing as an oracle yourself.”
Moffatt takes us into the workings of what he calls “the Oriental mind”. It is foolish to think that those of other times and cultures not only spoke differently than we do, but thought differently as well. He writes, “The Old Testament is a collection of Oriental books, Oriental in thought as well as form…..There must be an effort to bring this far-off world nearer to the modern mind, an effort which may occasionally forbid the translation to be literal….Several of the most characteristic Hebrew terms…have no English equivalents which exactly correspond to their original meaning.” Thus, he writes, “The Bible is not always what it seems to those who read it in the great prose of the English [KJV] version, or any of the conventional versions.” These are the pitfalls of translation.
Among other challenges, Moffatt writes that nearly all of the Old Testament scriptures “have been more or less edited, after their original composition…the Prophets as well as the legal codes…poetry as well as the prose.” Influences from Egypt and Assyria as well as Greece have also been detected. An additional pitfall is the lack of proper chronological sequence, which in the case of Isaiah and Jeremiah “is an obstacle to the proper appreciation of their value.” Nevertheless, the Hebrew literature “reflects a distinctive and unique movement…because it assimilated elements now and then from older, richer civilizations on its borders. What we accept as our Bible may “occasionally be shown to have derived certain forms and layers from outside, but it reflects a distinctive and unique religious movement which is characteristic of the people for which it is written.” This religious movement came into its own with the great works of the prophets Amos and Hosea in “a sudden flowering of faith and truth”, followed by Isaiah and Micah, his younger contemporary.
We know that what has been passed to us as the Pentateuch [the first five books of the Old Testament] is a fusion of writing from different traditions, particularly the southern [J, Judah] and northern [E] kingdoms. Although they are frequently parallel, differences can still be detected although these two traditions were fused together after the collapse of the northern kingdom to produce a scripture for the united people. Here may be found “…two more or less parallel versions of an event side by side, extracts of one being welded into the framework of the other.” This was “literature with a purpose, a composite production, made out of sources old and new, written as well as oral traditions from the pre-prophetic ages [more about the oral tradition later]. This knowledge, not literary ambition, was the motive behind the composition of the Pentateuch and the historical books.”
Occasionally when the two strata which “have been fused and confused in the original text” are combined it is “due to a combined edition prepared a century or two after they had begun to circulate separately.” Over time, this was found to be inadequate; a more stringent monotheism was needed, somehow connected with our present book of Deuteronomy.” It resulted in “the editing of histories and in the recension of earlier codes.” This, in turn, led to another strata, the priestly [P] code, making the Pentateuch “a composite production, made out of sources old and new, which have been blended, brought up to date, and supplemented.” It refined the belief in “God’s choice and care of his people, and in His revelations of a saving purpose….the people have always had and still have a unique destiny, and over them is the special providence of God.” This echoes one of Fosdick’s themes, the Bible as evolution of thought.
Regarding the importance of history and its role, Moffatt quotes Dr. A. B. Davidson, who writes, “A nation does not forget, but neither does it remember accurately.” This is because no one had written down the stories of the Patriarchs during their lifetime, in addition to carelessness in arranging the material or scribal errors. Even so, “The sketches are faultless….Occasionally the patching together of different traditions has blurred the effect, and rendered some details of the history obscure.” The advantage is that duplicate accounts in these traditions “take us close to actual events even though the Hebrew text may be full of self-contradictions.” Looking ahead to the New Testament, the same could be said of the varying accounts of the Resurrection—a variety of witnesses may recall the same event differently, but this is natural and only supports the reality of the event itself. [This point is also made in scholarly notes to The Jerusalem Bible regarding accounts of the Resurrection.]
It is expected that not all literature has survived. We are left with “…a selection of religious literature which survived, or which was judged authoritative for direction and worship….Even from the Hebrew text we can infer that some books perished …some literature is quoted which no longer exists.” It should be expected that some of these books were disputed. For example, the book of Ezekiel “became suspect in some circles, on account of its discrepancies between its legislative programme and the super-sacred Pentateuch (the truth being that one ought to amend the other).” Other books were challenged by ultra-orthodox circles such as Ecclesiastes, Esther, and the Song of Solomon.
Modern scholarship has also detected corruption in the historical text of the Old Testament, where it is either broken or defective. To add insult to injury, this is usually concealed by the English version. Moffatt’s translation uses … to denote breaks in the original text, where it would be more honest than to hazard a guess as to the contents. “A longer line of dots, in the poetical books, means that a line of the original text is either missing or too defective to be restored with any certainty, even with help of the versions.” Verses are relocated to restore their proper sequence, even though their verse numbers indicate otherwise. The habit of playing upon words is clarified by suggestions which appear in parentheses. Italics are used to “disentangle two separate forms or fragments of a story from the J or E narrative”, along with brackets. Double brackets are used for Old Testament passages which are editorial additions or later interpolations. In the case of the New Testament, citations of reminiscences from the Old Testament also appear in italics. These graphic mechanisms give us a clearer and more honest view of the scriptural record. The honesty and clarity of this approach is refreshing, and can only result in the reader’s clearer understanding.
While Moffatt ultimately chose The Eternal as the name for God, he acknowledged that “to drop the racial, archaic term [Yahweh, the Hebrew name given at the Exodus] is to miss something of what it meant to the Hebrew nation.”
In the New Testament, reliance is placed upon the “Q tradition” as the origin of the Gospel accounts. Briefly, The Q source (from German: Quelle, meaning “source”) is a hypothesized written collection of Jesus’ sayings found in the Matthew and Luke [with Mark, the Synoptics] but not in Mark, which was drawn from pre-existing stories and sayings about Jesus circulating in the early Christian community. A “Q” document, then, would form the basis for most of the non-marcan material common to Matthew and Luke. Moffatt’s view is that whether Mark used it is not certain. Mark was based on Peter’s reminiscences, “the only survivor of the evangelistic literature of the period.” Not only was the company of eyewitnesses diminishing, the new generation needed the story in Greek. Concerning the so-called missing ending [chapter 16, verses 9-20], it is Moffatt’s view that some accident happened to the page or pages of the book. Several modern scholars and textual critics suggest [of course] that the abrupt ending was a deliberate literary choice designed to leave the reader in awe, forcing them to reflect on the resurrection on their own. Some cite Mark as the original Gospel, with additions in Matthew and Luke the product of creative writing. Granted, “…there may have been other written sources, but these disappeared with the composition of the later gospels.”
Matthew and Luke are differentiated from Mark in their scope and purpose: “Matthew’s gospel is much more occupied with the proof of the Old Testament prophecy.” More than that, space is devoted not only to the teaching of Jesus, but to the revelation of his personality, which led to its placement as first among the four, It has been hypothesized that not only does Matthew draw from Q; he may have been its compiler [assuming a written form]. Luke, on the other hand, exhibited “a literary skill and an historic sense unrivaled by any of his predecessors.” Here, Moffatt’s view is that any omission of marcan material is not for a dogmatic reason but to make room for new material. Of the three synoptic Gospels, “the variety of their points of view only brings out their concentration of interest upon the central figure of the story.” Their answers form honest impressions, and as previously stated, these varied accounts are like those formed by eyewitnesses to the same event, differing in details but honest nevertheless.
Meanwhile, the search continues in vain from a written Q document, theoretically in Koine Greek. Some claim that the Gospel writers chose passages from the Old Testament to approximate what Jesus may have said. It is not surprising to me that Jesus, being steeped in the Jewish tradition would do so [as in his cry of anguish on the cross, quoting Psalms 22:1 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”], but it is also clear that he took the time on several occasions to differentiate his teaching from that of the Jewish tradition, underlying the uniqueness of his message. Moffatt claims that neither of the two later synoptic Gospels was written to be read alongside Mark. Their purpose was to supersede it, “or at any rate to be read in quarters where it was unknown.”
There is a valid reason for the gap between the oral tradition and written documents. For this we must go to the motives of the first believers. In introducing the New Testament, Moffatt writes, “Jesus wrote nothing, and for a time his immediate disciples felt no impulse to write any account of him. A new age and order was expected at any moment: Jesus was to inaugurate this soon and suddenly. Why write a biography of one who was to reappear from heaven ere long? They were living in the brief interval between his earthly life and his return to complete the work of God, which would end the present order. Theirs was only to wait, and meantime to bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus, to induce, if possible, the Jewish nation to repent of their sin in murdering God’s chosen servant.”
Eventually, the writings appeared. They were “the classical literature of early Christianity, springing from the vitality of men who remembered Jesus, who were conscious of living in personal fellowship with him, and who expected his return.” As time went on, “hope did not fade, but the element of memory was heightened in the service of faith; the historical basis had to be emphasized as the development went on.”
Enough of the existent or nonexistent Q document. Ultimately, we are left with only oral tradition to fill the gap between Jesus’ life and the synoptic Gospels. So, the record passed through this stage, a collection of sayings and stories of Jesus in Aramaic followed by a literary one. I do not find this so unusual. Oral transmission in several traditions are as reliable as they are powerful. The Rishis of ancient India are believed to have “heard” (sruti) the hymns of the Vedas during meditation and preserved them line by line, word by word, long before they ever existed in written form. So did the Celtic bards, requiring years of preparation and memorization for those who aspired to the position. This was the norm before the oral culture evolved to a written one. It continues to exist in tribal societies today. I see a counterpart in music, where songs are committed to memory without written notation to facilitate the nuances of their seamless and spontaneous performance. Here, as in the transmission of sacred teaching, oral tradition is by no means inferior to the written one. In fact, it may be the best way, serving as a reliable foundation. Moffatt acknowledges as much: “Oriental memory is singularly tenacious, and the impression he had made upon his followers was deep and sharp. As time went on, the Palestinian Christians cherished more and more the recollection of outstanding events and sayings in his life…The argument with the Jews turned mainly upon his sufferings, which had to be adjusted to their traditional faith in a Messiah. The apologetic requirements of the early mission led to the crystallization of memories about him. Also his words were recalled, since they formed the rule and guide of his communities….These are incidental allusions, but they are the more telling because they are incidental. They fall within the implicit knowledge of details about the historical life of Jesus in Paul’s letters. All this was due to the vivid recollections and traditions of the primitive Palestinian disciples…Those who had been with him loved to recollect the very words he used, his looks and gestures, his methods of teaching and healing. And this from no pious or sentimental motive. When challenged by the Jews to justify their faith and practice, they had to fall back upon what they remembered of the instructions of their Lord….But a generation passed without any definite expression of this in literature.”
Moffatt notes that in only two of the Epistles, Peter and Hebrews, is there any appeal to Jesus’ historical life. But meanwhile the interest in his life was beginning to voice itself in other writing. To this, the term gospel must be mentioned. Both an individual term for a written account and a collective one, “it was reserved as a title for the books which described the historical life of Jesus. They were distinguished from the Old Testament…which was believed to predict the career and mission of our Lord, and from the apostolic epistles and other writing which arose out of that mission.”
John, of course, is another case altogether. His gospel is more philosophy than biography, reflecting spiritualized [proto-Gnostic?] thought, inspiring believers in a different way. This fourth Gospel “contains an entirely new cycle of teaching” in the extended discourse before the Passion, as well as an appendix to the narrative after Jesus’ death, “which was possibly written by another editor.” Additionally, “the extra-Judean material is probably drawn from genuine historical material which the other synoptics imply, but fail to chronicle.” John’semi-philosoph-ical interpretation idealizes the primitive conception—it is a re-interpretation. “In point of thought the Fourth Gospel is the climax…just as the Second Epistle of Peter is the last writing of the New Testament collection.”
The First Epistle of John “is a sort of pendant to the Fourth Gospel. The identification of its writer is uncertain, as is “a Christian prophet called John, who, during the last decade of the first century, wrote…The Apocalypse, a series of weird, symbolic visions couched often in terms of Oriental fantasy…which ends in the return of Jesus in the Messianic power.” Of course, the relationships between Church and State changed after its composition, but this conclusion to our Bible stands as “a valuable document for the temper of primitive Christians who had to face the policy of Roman repression at the end of the first century.” Taken in the context of its symbolic imagery, it has its place in documenting not only the mindset but the lives of these believers. This points out the foolishness of those who twist themselves into contortions to claim it as a literal account, manufacturing so-called prophesies of the current Mideast turmoil as ushering in the “end times”, reveling in its cruelty and in the suffering of millions. This is the price being paid by their apocalyptic mindset.
We have in this translation a clear, logical, and unique attempt to improve upon its predecessors. Add to this its arrangement: his unique method of “mechanics” to clarify the text. Let me pose an impertinent question: do the translators of Judeo-Christian scripture ever envy those of, say, Sanskrit literature where there is a more solid linguistic base without the pitfalls of extensive multi-lingual comparison? Granted, there are multiple schools of thought in these philosophies, but much linguistic underbrush has been cleared from the path.
Many translations, as we now know, were to follow, too many to note here. In the current age, even those whose status was considered secure had their revisions, usually prefaced with “New”, if not a catchier title. It could be argued that the granddaddy of comprehensive attempts was St. Jerome. He was commissioned at the end of the fourth century to supersede earlier versions with an “official” version. This, of course, was after the “marriage” of church and state, where Rome ceased to be the Antichrist. “This revision of earlier Latin versions became authoritative [and earned Jerome his saintly title].” After Jerome’s New Testament translation, he went on to translate the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. This version outlived its detractors and was eventually known as the Vulgate, still influential today. Our older English versions depend on it, although its own text became corrupted due to the carelessness of scribes and “an inadequate knowledge of the materials for a true text.” Vernacular translations were discouraged because they were not made from their Hebrew and Greek sources.
There is a compelling reason that the 1611 King James Version remains a favorite of English speakers, and it is not for its accuracy—far from it. In fact, many of its passages must be taken with a grain of salt. In terms of the currency of its language, it was already “older” than the contemporary speech of the era. It utilized the elevated, timeless style of Early Modern English to make it sound dignified and authoritative. Thus, it has become “that immortal monument of English prose which carried on the directness and realistic power of the Wycliffe translations.” Beyond issues of accuracy and meaning, it excels as literature. Its poetic sweep was unexcelled and continues to be. It has a deserved place in secular English departments throughout the land, and rightly so.
While the King James Version is revered for its majestic rhythm, centuries of linguistic shifts have caused many of its seventeenth-century words to fall completely out of modern vocabulary. Although scholars and readers often reference it for its historical and literary value alongside more modern translations of the Bible, the storm clouds were gathering. Dissatisfaction with the KJV came at the end of the nineteenth century because of (1) its unintelligible Elizabethan prose; (2) advances in scholarship; and (3) progress in textual criticism. This led to the English translation of 1885 [called the Authorized Version, or AV]. In Moffatt’s words, “A translator depends largely upon its text for its permanent value. No literary qualities quite make up for a defective text of the original.” A similar problem applied to the American Revised Version of 1900-1901. The aim in this translation was to represent the gains of recent research while at the same time to be readable. From this point, a flood of translations ensued. For me, Moffatt’s version stands as an effort not only to consolidate the gains of scholarship but to be readable. More than this, it stands as a monument to truth.
The Word is eternal but its means of preservation is perishable indeed. I imagine that the shifting sands which record it will never settle. This being said, efforts to achieve clarity and truth should always be welcome, an enduring and necessary task. James Moffatt has done this well.
Divinepersonhood 