Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech: Preface and Introductions | Page 3

rendering into English. They are in the footnotes, with V.L. (varia lectio) prefixed. As to the chief modern critical editions full details will be found in the Resultant Greek Testament, while for the original authorities--MSS., Versions, Patristic quotations--the reader must of necessity consult the great works of Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and others, or the numerous monographs on separate Books. /3 In the margin of the R.V. a distinction is made between readings supported by "a few ancient authorities," "some ancient authorities," "many ancient authorities," and so on. Such valuation is not attempted in this work.
12. Considerable pains have been bestowed on the exact rendering of the tenses of the Greek verb; for by inexactness in this detail the true sense cannot but be missed. That the Greek tenses do not coincide, and cannot be expected to coincide with those of the English verb; that--except in narrative--the aorist as a rule is more exactly represented in English by our perfect with "have" than by our simple past tense; and that in this particular the A.V. is in scores of instances more correct than the R.V.; the present Translator has contended (with arguments which some of the best scholars in Britain and in America hold to be "unanswerable" and "indisputable") in a pamphlet On the Rendering into English of the Greek Aorist and Perfect. Even an outline of the argument cannot be given in a Preface such as this.
13. But he who would make a truly English translation of a foreign book must not only select the right nouns, adjectives, and verbs, insert the suitable prepositions and auxiliaries, and triumph (if he can) over the seductions and blandishments of idioms with which he has been familiar from his infancy, but which, though forcible or beautiful with other surroundings, are for all that part and parcel of that other language rather than of English: he has also to beware of connecting his sentences in an un-English fashion.
Now a careful examination of a number of authors (including Scottish, Irish, and American) yields some interesting results. Taking at haphazard a passage from each of fifty-six authors, and counting on after some full stop till fifty finite verbs--i. e. verbs in the indicative, imperative, or subjunctive mood--have been reached (each finite verb, as every schoolboy knows, being the nucleus of one sentence or clause), it has been found that the connecting links of the fifty-six times fifty sentences are about one-third conjunctions, about one-third adverbs or relative and interrogative pronouns, while in the case of the remaining third there is what the grammarians call an asyndeton--no formal grammatical connexion at all. But in the writers of the N.T. nearly two-thirds of the connecting links are conjunctions. It follows that in order to make the style of a translation true idiomatic English many of these conjunctions must be omitted, and for others adverbs, &c., must be substituted.
The two conjunctions for and therefore are discussed at some length in two Appendices to the above-mentioned pamphlet on the Aorist, to which the reader is referred.
14. The NOTES, with but few exceptions, are not of the nature of a general commentary. Some, as already intimated, refer to the readings here followed, but the great majority are in vindication or explanation of the renderings given. Since the completion of this new version nearly two years ago, ill-health has incapacitated the Translator from undertaking even the lightest work. He has therefore been obliged to entrust to other hands the labour of critically examining and revising the manuscript and of seeing it through the press. This arduous task has been undertaken by Rev. Ernest Hampden-Cook, M.A., St. John's College, Cambridge, of Sandhach, Cheshire, with some co-operation from one of the Translator's sons; and the Translator is under deep obligations to these two gentlemen for their kindness in the matter. He has also most cordially to thank Mr. Hampden-Cook for making the existence of the work known to various members of the OLD MILLHILIANS' CLUB and other former pupils of the Translator, who in a truly substantial manner have manifested a generous determination to enable the volume to see the light. Very grateful does the Translator feel to them for this signal mark of their friendship.
Mr. Hampden-Cook is responsible for the headings of the paragraphs, and at my express desire has inserted some additional notes.
I have further to express my gratitude to Rev. Frank Baliard, M.A., B.Sc., Lond., at present of Sharrow, Sheffield, for some very valuable assistance which he has most kindly given in connexion with the Introductions to the several books.
I have also the pleasure of acknowledging the numerous valuable and suggestive criticisms with which I have been favoured on some parts of the work, by an old friend, Rev. Sydney Thelwall, B.A., of Leamington, a clergyman of the Church of England,