has pretended to discover a sense of plain historical passages unknown to former translators, the effrontery of his attempt is fully equalled by the ignorance, inconsistency and incapacity which he displays in carrying it into effect. We now proceed to take a short view of his success in clothing the meaning of the original in an English dress, in those parts where he allows the sense to be the same as has been always understood. His pretension, we have seen, is to give a close translation of the Hebrew: the consequence is that, while he uses English words, he makes no accommodation whatever to English idiom; and has, therefore, for the most part, produced strings of words, which scarcely deserve to be called English sentences. He has had predecessors in this way; among others, Henry Ainsworth, who, about the year 1639, published a version of the five books of Moses, the Psalms, &c. on a plan which he calls making Scripture its own interpreter, where, professing to render the Hebrew into English, word for word, he produces a version of so harsh and uncouth a description, that Lewis, in his history of English Translations, (p. 353.) after giving a specimen, asks whether it can be be lieved that Ainsworth was an Englishman and understood his own language! The case is precisely the same with Mr. Bellamy. Gen. ii. 3, 4, 5. Therefore God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because, before it, he ceased from all his work; for God created, to generate. These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when he created them: on the day Jehovah finished, earth and heaven. Even every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew for Jehovah God had not caused rain on the earth; moreover, nor a man, to till the ground.' Gen. ii. 23, 24. And the man said; Thus this time, bone after my also flesh after my flesh; for this he shall call woman; because she was received by the man. Therefore a man will leave, even his father, and his mother: for he will unite with his wife; and they shall be, for one flesh.' bone; in In such passages as these (and we could produce them from、 every page) it would be often impossible for the English reader to comprehend the meaning of the original, unless he had the authorized version at hand to interpret that of Mr. Bellamy. How infinitely inferior is a translation of this hard and dry nature, to that use, where there is such an accommodation to the native idiom as to make the language easy and intelligible, and yet no essential de-. parture from the original! But, independently of the general uncouthness of this absurd attempt to preserve the Hebrew idiom, Mr. Bellamy's translation abounds with inconsistencies, improprieties, and alterations of the words of the authorized version manifestly for the worse. We will produce a few passages from the first chapter of Genesis, as specimens of the whole. 6 V. 1. In the beginning God created the substance of the heaven. and the substance of the earth.' The substance of" Mr. Bellamy conceives, he says, to be the meaning of the word ns which precedes own and 8, the heavens and the earth.' Now it is the opinion of Hebraists of the first authority that n preceding a noun, after an active verb, is merely the mark of the accusative case. It is true that Parkhurst considers ns to mean the very substance of a thing,' the,' the very;' but, allowing him to be right, the proper translation would be the very heaven and the very earth,' ipsum coelum et ipsam terram; not the substance of the heaven and the earth,' an expression, from which would naturally be understood, not that the heaven and earth were created, but that the substance was created from which the heaven and the earth were afterwards formed. But let it be granted that Mr. Bellamy is right in his translation of this passage. We conceive no position will be more generally allowed than that the same word, when similarly applied in different passages, should be rendered in the same sense. Now what is the fact? The word, ns, occurs similarly applied in this very chapter more than a dozen times; and in no one instance, excepting this of v. 1. does he translate it the substance of,' or give it any peculiar force. Thus at v. 4. he does not say God saw that the substance of the light was good,' but God saw that the light was good.' At v. 7. God made the expanse; at v. 16. God made the two great lights,' &c. Mr. Bellamy must either be right in the sense he contends for of the word ns, or he must be wrong. If wrong, why does he express it at v. 1.? If right, why does he omit to express it in all the other passages? V. 3. Then God said, Be light." Mr. Bellamy finds fault with the expression of the received translation, Let there be light,' because, there is no authority for the word 'let' in the original, and because, as implying permission, it is not applicable to the Creator. We have seldom met with a remark founded on more consummate ignorance. He does not seem to know that the word 'let' is auxiliary in the form of the third person imperative in English, and that Be it' and let it be' are forms of expres sion perfectly synonimous, permission being no more implied in the one than in the other. V. 5. So the evening and the morning were the first day.' The literal translation of the Hebrew is, The evening was, and the morning was, the first day.' As he professes to translate with extreme closeness, why has he deserted his principle here? V. 6. Be there a division between the waters, &c. The word which he translates a division' is 20, which is manifestly the participle benoni in Hiphil from 72 to divide; and the literal rendering rendering is, Be it (or let it be) dividing, or causing to divide, between the waters, &c.' This is most properly expressed by our translators, Let it divide.' Mr. Bellamy evidently, from sheer ignorance of Hebrew, mistakes 20 for a noun substantive. V. 10. The conflux of the waters.' The rendering of our translators the gathering together of the waters,' is much more simple and agreeable to the original. V. 11. The earth shall germinate grass.' To say nothing of Mr. Bellamy's not knowing a neuter verb from an active, how much more simple is our version, the earth shall bring forth grass'! 'Fruit yielding fruit after his kind, with its seed in it. In the last words is a positive error, for he has wholly omitted the relative Our version rightly .אשר זרעו בו in the expression אשר pronoun expresses it,' Whose seed is in it or in itself.' Mr. Bellamy has made a similar mistake at v. 12. V. 14. Thus they shall endure for signs.' The Hebrew word is a form of the verb 'to be'; which he translates, indeed, in all the contiguous verses, in the sense of to be'; but which he thinks proper in this place to render endure.' This, instead of close trauslation, is more loose than could possibly be approved, even in one who did not make a peculiar boast of giving a close translation. V. 17. Then God arranged them.' Our translators, far more elegantly, 'God set them.' For the light upon the earth.' Here Mr. Bellamy shews his utter ignorance of the plainest principles of Hebrew. The word which he renders for the light' is 7, which he evidently supposes to be a noun substantive 7s light, with for' and 'the' prefixed. It happens, however, that there is no such substantive as 7, signifying light in the Hebrew language. The word, in fact, is a verb, regularly formed in the infinitive in Hiphil, and signifying to give or cause light,' as our translators correctly render it. V. 20. The water shall bring forth abundantly the soul of life. Had Mr. Bellamy endeavoured to translate the verse into nonsense, he could not have succeeded better than he has done. The words 'n wa, which he renders' the soul of life,' evidently mean the living creature,' the creature, or the moving creature that hath life,' as our translation gives it. V. 31. Thus God provided for all that he had made.' Here is a needless departure from the original; which simply says 'God saw all that he had made.' From these examples, all occurring in a single chapter, our rea $ 2 ders ders will be sufficiently enabled to appreciate Mr. Bellamy's pre tensions to an improved translation of the Bible. In a former pas sage, we alluded to his assertions respecting the words inserted in italic, as interpolations which obscure the sense, make the Bible speak what it never did speak, &c. As this is a matter of some importance, we will trace these italics through a considerable part of the first chapter of Genesis; it will then appear that Mr. Bellamy himself has for the most part inserted the very same words which the authorized translators have done, although, far inferior to them in accuracy, he has often omitted to mark them as insertions; and, in some instances, where he has not made them, left the sense in perfect obscurity. Gen. i. 2. Engl. Transl. Darkness was upon the face of the deep.' God saw-that it was good.' In all these passages, the original stands God saw that good.' It was obviously necessary to express this Hebrew idiom by the insertion of the words 'it was:' and Mr. Bellamy finds it necessary to make precisely the same insertions. At v. 4, he inserts the word was,' that the light was good;' and, in all the other verses, he inserts, as the authorized translators have done, it was:' but, with a carelessness which is quite inconceivable, he has marked only two out of the seven instances in italics. As the expression in all the cases is precisely the same, there is not a particle of reason for this distinction: we attribute it, in fact, to positive carelessness. But, we must again ask, is this the man to tax others with carelessness? and to improve upon the authorized version? V. 7. E. T. Waters which were under the firmament-waters which were above, &c.' Here Mr. Bellamy inserts were in each case, as our translators do, and marks it in italics. V. 29. E. T. Every herb-which is upon the face.' Every tree in the which is the fruit.' The word in italics is inserted to make the sense clear in both these clauses. Mr. Bellamy makes the same insertions, but does not mark them in italics. 6 V. 30. E. T. Wherein there is life.' Mr. Bellamy inserts the verb in the same manner as our translators, and in this case, differing from the last, he does notice it in italics. There remain two instances in which our translators have made insertions of more importance, and which, as will be seen, are clearly necessary to prevent ambiguity. The first is at v. 16. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night he made the stars also.' Here the words he made are obviously inserted to preclude the ambiguity : which would exist without them, since it might appear that the verb 'to rule' governed the stars, as well as the night;' to rule the night; the stars also.' Now, as the meaning of the original is clear, and it was the purpose of the translators to convey the meaning to the English reader, we consider their insertion of these words as a proof of the judgment with which they proceeded. But, if this could admit of a doubt, Mr. Bellamy's translation will be sufficient to prove the point. It stands thus, God made two great lightsthe lesser light, to rule the night; also the stars.' Here that ambiguity is most apparent, which it was the object of our translators to remove. The second instance is of a similar description. v. 29. God says, ' Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,' &c. then, after several intervening clauses, at v. 30. I have given every green herb for meat.' Here, in consequence of the distance of the verb I have given,' v. 29. from the words which it governs, every green herb,' the translators have not left it to be understood, but have most properly supplied it for the sake of clearness. Mr. Bellamy, on the contrary, has not supplied it, and has left the sense perfectly unintelligible; for he has placed a full stop at the end of v. 29. and rendered 30 as follows-' And to every beast of the earth, also to every bird of the heaven, yea to all moving on the earth, in which is the soul of life; even every herb, for food: and it was so.' So much for Mr. Bellamy's insinuations respecting the insertions in italic! But Mr. Bellamy particularly plumes himself on his attention to punctuation. 'I have paid,' he says, (Introd. p. xi.) ' particular attention to the punctuation. In the common version, we frequently find it so neglected that the first proposition is made to run into the second, and the second into the third, by which the true sense is not known. I have therefore closely adhered to the Hebrew punctuation, which will be found to add great light to numbers of passages hitherto obscure.' We will give a few specimens of his skill in this department. The following passages are pointed exactly as they appear in his book. 'Gen. 1. i. In the beginning God created, the substance of the hea ven. 4. And God saw, that the light, was good thus God divided, the light, from the darkness. 10. And God called, the dry land, earth. ii. 10. And a river went forth from Eden; to water the garden: which from thence divided; and became, four heads.' These specimens (and similar ones pervade the whole work) are sufficient to shew the valuable fruits of Mr. Bellamy's particular attention to this part of grammar. We know not that, in any book 1 |