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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
The eighteenth century is a lost era in the history of English bible translation. The long tenure of the King James, or Authorised Version (AV), has caused historians to overlook the existence of the scores of translations which were attempted between 1611 and 1881–5, when the Revised Version was published. Darlow and Moule's Historical Catalogue of English Bibles lists the publication of at least forty-four new English translations of bibles, testaments, individual books, or groups of books between 1700 and 1800. There were many more translations of biblical texts than these, however, as the recent and more comprehensive catalogue by W. Chamberlin has conclusively demonstrated. Many have been lost to historical sight, or were never published, which could have easily been the fate of the celebrated translation by Anthony Purver, were it not for the patronage of the wealthy physician and fellow Quaker, Dr John Fothergill.
2 Historical Catalogue of English Bibles…, ed. Darlow, H. and Moule, F. (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar.
3 Chamberlin, W., Catalogue of English Bible Translations: a Classified Bibliography (New York, 1991)Google Scholar, passim. Christopher Hill's opinion that the Bible was ignored in the eighteenth century must be modified in the light of such a large amount of material. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (London, 1993), 7Google Scholar.
4 Sjolander, P., Some Aspects of Style in Twentieth Century English Bible Translation. One Man Versions of Mark and the Psalms (U.M.E.A., Stockholm, 1979)Google Scholar points out the existence of many manuscript and privately printed translations beyond those included in her study of translation this century. There is good reason to believe the same was true of the eighteenth century.
5 For the British and Foreign Bible Society's publishing and distribution operations, see Howsam, L., Cheap Bibles: Nineteenth-Century Publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar. William Newcome, Archbishop of Armagh, saw that ‘a translation by authority ought to supersede all others from its intrinsic excellence; and would of course supersede them by the frequency, correctness, and cheapness of its editions, as King James's Bible did that of Geneva, notwithstanding the preference given to it by the Calvinists’. Newcome, An Historical View of the English Biblical Translations: the Expediency of Revising our Present Translation: and the Means of Executing such a Revision (Dublin, 1792), 202–3Google Scholar.
6 For which, see G. E. Bentley, ‘Bible Illustrations and Sales’ and idem, ‘The Holy Pirates: Legal Enforcement in England of the Patent in the Authorised Version of the Bible, c. 1800’, Studies in Bibliography (University of Virginia), 50 (1997), 372–89, which discusses the debate over whether the Crown had copyright over all bibles, all English bibles, or merely over the current AV, which had been produced specifically by royal command; ‘Images of the Word: Separately Published English Bible Illustrations, 1539–1830’, Studies in Bibliography, 47 (1994), 103–28Google Scholar (esp. 107–8). The question of royal copyright was raised in the light of the modern patent of Elizabeth I to the publisher Barker in 1577, which stated ‘All and singular Bibles and New Testaments whatsoever, in the English tongue or in any other tongue whatsoever, and any translation with or without notes.’ It was a decision of 1769 which clarified the Crown's copyright. ‘Mr Salkeld, after positively and expressly denying any prerogative in the Crown over the press, or any power to grant an exclusive privilege, says “I take the rule in all these cases to be, that when the Crown has a property or right of copy, the king may grant it. The Crown may grant the sole printing of Bibles in the English translation, because it was made at the king's charge.”’ Quoted by Lord Mansfield, CJ, in Millar v. Taylor (1763–9), 4. Burrows Reports, 2303, from Salkeld's MS report, 2403–4, cited in Carter, H., A History of Oxford University Press, vol. I, to 1780 (Oxford, 1975), 351, 348Google Scholar.
7 Lattimore, R., ‘Practical Notes on Translating Greek Poetry’, On Translation, ed. Brower, R. A. (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 148Google Scholar.
8 Pope, H. and Bullough, S., English Versions of the Bible (London, 1952)Google Scholar is the fullest treatment of the subject by farWestcott's, B. F.A General View of the History of the English Bible (5th edn, 1905)Google Scholar is dismissive of the eighteenth-century translation activity. Moulton, W. F., The History of the English Bible (London, Paris, New York, 1878)Google Scholar, ignores it completely. Mention must be made of New Testament scholar Bruce's, F. F. compact survey The English Bible (Lutterworth, 1961)Google Scholar, published to coincide with the launching of the New Testament of the New English Bible. These books are among the few to note seriously any activity between 1611 and 1881 but, like all others, lack an interpretive scheme.
9 Schwartz, H., The French Prophets. The History of a Millenanan Group in Eighteenth-century England (Berkeley, Ca., 1980), p. 53Google Scholar.
10 Sykes, N., ‘The Religion of Protestants’, The Cambridge History of the Bible. The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. Greenslade, S. L., III (Cambridge, 1963), 175Google Scholar, Chillingworth, citing, The Religion of Protestants: a Safe Way to Salvation (1638)Google Scholar.
11 For which, see Hill, , Bible, 64–5Google Scholar. The revisions and distribution of the Catholic Douai-Rheims translation were similarly politicised, though the main purpose in providing a Roman Catholic translation in English was to give a safe alternative bible to Catholics. It need hardly be said that in the political climate of eighteenth-century Britain, there were no plans to invite Catholic scholars to join any translation committee. For the history of Catholic bibles in eighteenth-century Britain, see Cotton, H., Rhemes and Doway. An attempt to shew what has been done by Roman Catholics for the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures in English (Oxford, 1855)Google Scholar. More accessible is Pope, and Bullough, , English Versions, 337–90Google Scholar. There is no discussion of Catholic bible translation in Challoner and his Church. A Catholic Bishop in Georgian England, ed. Duffy, E. (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar, though there is a chapter in Burton's, E. H. earlier biographical treatment, The Life and Times of Bishop Challoner (1691–1781) (London, 1909), I, 270–89Google Scholar.
12 For example, MacKnight, James, ‘Essay IV’, A New and Literal Translation…of all the Apostolical Epistles (London, 1795 [1821 edn]), 1, 85Google Scholar. Purver, Anthony, A New and Literal Translation of all the Books of the Old and New Testament… (London, 1764), 202Google Scholar. Scarlett, Nathaniel, A Translation of the New Testamentfromthe Original Greek; humbly attempted… (London, 1798), iGoogle Scholar.
13 Doddridge, Philip, ‘Preface’, Family Expositor: or, a paraphrase and version of the New Testament: with critical notes, 12-vol. edn (London, 1765)Google Scholar. Cited in Newcome, , Historical View, 133Google Scholar.
14 Ormerod, Richard, A short specimen for an improvement in some parts of the present translation of the Old Testament (Cambridge and London, 1792)Google Scholar.
15 Newcome, , Historical View, 226Google Scholar.
16 For a discussion of the role of the Authorised version in constructing a protestant British identity before 1800, albeit a contested identity, see Mandelbrote, S., ‘The bible and national identity in the British Isles, c. 1650–c. 1750’, Protestantism and National Identity. Britain and Ireland, c. 1650–c. 1850, ed. Claydon, T. and McBride, I. (Cambridge, 1998), 157–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 MacKnight, , ‘Preface’, Apostolic Epistles, I and 9Google Scholar.
18 He referred to Johnson, Anthony, An Historical Account of the several English translations of the Bible: and the opposition they met with from the Church of Rome (London, 1730)Google Scholar, and the low church whig Lewis's, JohnComplete History of the several translations of the Bible in English (2nd edn, 1739)Google Scholar. Lewis's, ‘strong protestant bias’ ‘excited the open hostility of his hearers’’’’’’ in 1712Google Scholar when he preached a visitation sermon in Canterbury. DNB. His was the first published edition of Wycliffe's bible, in 1731.
19 MacKnight, , ‘Preface’, Apostolic Epistles, 11–24Google Scholar.
20 MacKnight, , ‘Preface’, Apostolic Epistles, 49Google Scholar.
21 Douay Rheims New Testament (1899 edition).
23 Grant, F. C., Translating the Bible (Edinburgh, 1961), 6–7Google Scholar.
23 Lobban, M., The Common Law and English Jurisprudence, 1760–1850 (Oxford, 1991), 7–16Google Scholar. Jeremy Bentham's proverbial hostility to religion did not prevent him making the rather interesting observation that ‘The forming of a Digest of the Law’ was to lawyers, what the making of a translation of the bible was to churchmen’. That is, Bentham thought bible translation would expose priestcraft. Presumably he was describing pre-Reformation churchmen, though contemporary lawyers. Univ. Lond. MSS: UC. xxvii. 124, cited in Lieberman, D., The Province of Legislation Determined. Legal Theory in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, 1989), 253CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 For discussion of the neo-Roman idea of liberty, especially as it relates to the problem of monarchy and public liberty, see Quentin Skinner's, inaugural lecture as Regius Professor, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1998), 52–5Google Scholar.
25 Joseph Priestley was a notable exception to dissenting norms in preferring a revision, even to the point of resisting the views of strong-willed friends, like Thomas Belsham, William Frend and Theophilus Lindsay, whom he had commissioned to assist him in making a new translation. Priestley wanted to stay much closer to the wording of the AV than, specifically, Newcome and Blayney. See his Preface to the English edition of his Harmony of the Evangelists (III), and, despite some inaccuracies, Brooks, Marilyn, ‘Priesdey's plan for a “Continually Improving” translation of the Bible’, Enlightenment and Dissent, no. 15 (1996), 89–106Google Scholar. The new translation was within days of completion when it was destroyed in the fire of July 1792. Also Graham, Jenny, ‘Priestley and his Bible’, Enlightenment and Dissent, no. 14 (1995), 88–104Google Scholar.
26 ‘To be a useful instrument of social intercourse, language must be able to admit new knowledge and new organisations of knowledge. In a sense, it must fit reality or it is useless.’ Nida, E., Toward a Science of Translating (Leiden, 1964), 3Google Scholar.
37 Dryden, , ‘Preface’, Ovid's Epistles (1680)Google Scholar, in Essay on Dramatic Poesy and other Prose Works, ed. Watson, George, I, 262–73Google Scholar. Also Nida, , Science, 17–18Google Scholar.
28 See literature review in ‘Preface’ to Locke, John, Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul, ed. Wainwright, A. W. (2 vols) (Oxford, 1987), I, 22–5Google Scholar.
29 Batteux (1760) in France, and Herder and Schlegel in Germany. Nida, , Science, 18Google Scholar.
30 Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (8 vols, London, 1817–1858), iv, 853Google Scholar.
31 Nida, , Science, 18Google Scholar, citing Campbell, G., The Four Gospels (2 vols, London, 1789)Google Scholar. Nida also appreciated Campbell's introductory volume, which he called ‘an outstanding scholarly treatment of translation principles and procedures, especially as they are related to the problems of the Bible translator’ (5, note).
32 Blackwall, Anthony, The Sacred Classics defended and illustrated; or, an essay humbly offer'd towards proving the purity, propriety, and true eloquence of the writers of the New Testament (London, 1725–1731Google Scholar.
33 Harwood, Edward, A New Introduction to the Study and Knowledge of the New Testament (2nd edn, London, 1773), xiiiGoogle Scholar.
34 See his appendix concerning classical Greek and bibles.
35 Purver, , ‘Introductory Remarks’, New and Literal Translation, vGoogle Scholar.
36 Harwood, , ‘Introduction’, A Liberal Translation of the New Testament, being an attempt to translate the sacred writings (London, Bristol and Warrington, 1768), ivGoogle Scholar.
37 Harwood, , Advertisement of subscription for Liberal Translation (1765), 3Google Scholar.
38 Harwood, , Liberal Translation, vGoogle Scholar.
39 Ibid.
40 The model of formal and dynamic equivalent in translating was proposed by the twentieth-century missionary translator Eugene Nida. Nida, , Science, 159Google Scholar.
41 The shift in emphasis away from the traditional christology of redemption through sacrifice in favour of redemption through moral instruction is noticeable in Harwood's translation of this passage.
42 DNB.
43 Addison, , Spectator, No. 405, 14 06 1712Google Scholar.
44 For the importance of candour to dissenters, see Webb, R. K., ‘Rational Piety’, Enlightenment and Religion. Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. Haakonssen, K. (Cambridge, 1996), 219–40Google Scholar.
45 A debate which persists even today among translators of the English bible.
46 Edmund Paley noted that while writing Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy his father ‘fell in with times when uncourtly language became the fashion in polities’. Paley, E., An Account of the Life of William Paley, D.D. (London, 1825), 344–5Google Scholar. Also Barker, E., Traditions of Civility. Eight Essays (Cambridge, 1948), 232Google Scholar.
47 Jones, W., A Course of Lectures on the Figurative Language of the Holy Scripture, and the Interpretation of it from Scripture itself (London, for the author, 1787), 2–10Google Scholar. See also Hitchin, N. W., ‘The Evidence of Things Seen: Georgian Churchmen and Biblical Prophecy’, Prophecy. The Power of Inspired Language in History, 1300–2000, ed. Taithe, B. and Thornton, T. (Stroud, Glocs., 1997), 133Google Scholar.
48 Frei, H., The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. A Study in Eighteenth- and Mneteenth-Century Hermeneutics (New Haven and London, 1974), 52Google Scholar.
49 Jones, W., Figurative Language, 1Google Scholar.
50 Monthly Review (1789), 110–17.
51 MacKnight does not himself use the scientific metaphor, but the practical point is evident in his writing. ‘Preface’, Apostolic Epistles, 45.
52 Said, E., Orientalism (Harmondsworth, Middx, 1978), 3Google Scholar.
53 E. S. Shaffer, ‘Kubla Khan’ and The Fall of Jerusalem. The Mythological School in Biblical Criticism and Secular Literature, 1770–1880 (Cambridge, 1972), 14Google Scholar.
54 For example, Michaelis, Johan-David, Introductory Lectures to the Sacred Books of the New Testament, translated anonymously (London, 1761)Google Scholar. Latterly translated from the 4th German edition by Herbert Marsh, with considerable additional notes (3 vols, Cambridge and London, 1793–1801).
55 J. White, Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, noted the increased knowledge of eastern customs as one reason for a new revision in a sermon of 1778. A Revisal of the English Translation of the Old Testament Recommended (Oxford, 1779)Google Scholar.
56 Mack, R. L., ‘Introduction’, Oriental Tales (Oxford, 1992), xlvii–xlviiiGoogle Scholar.
57 For instance, St Jerome corresponded with St Augustine on the textual discrepancies they encountered.
58 MacKnight, , ‘Supplementary Essays’, Apostolical Epistks, I, 69–70Google Scholar.
59 William Whiston's Greek text was based on the eccentric but important codex Beza at Cambridge. It provided the foundation for his English version (1745) which, together with his commitment to the priority of the Apostolic Constitutions, formed the core support for his idea of Primitive Christianity.
60 Autobiography of Thomas Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Macauley, J. S. and Greaves, R. W., University of Kansas Library Series, no. 49, (Lawrence, Kansas, 1988), 169Google Scholar. Durell was also responsible, as vice-chancellor in 1768, for passing sentence against the six evangelical ‘martyrs’ of St Edmund's Hall.
61 For all of whom, see DNB.
62 DNB and Newcome, to Toulmin, , 7 09 1794Google Scholar, Monthly Repository [of Theology and General Literature] (1800), vol 1, pp. 519–20. Newcome, included the catalogue, A List of various editions of the Bible, and parts therof in English from theyear 1526 to ijy6 (London, 1778)Google Scholar in his Historical View.
63 Twelve Minor Prophets (London and Dublin, 1785), 229–46Google Scholar.
64 Lowth, , Preliminary Dissertation to Isaiah (London, 1778), lxixGoogle Scholar.
65 The tooled inscription ‘E. Law 1757’ on the front cover of each volume, with the note inside, confirm that he purchased this bible in 1757, the year after he became Master of Peterhouse (1756–87).
66 Holy Bible (Tomson's Geneva version as printed in 1599, without the Apocrypha, 4to), 3 vols (Robert Barker, 1606), 1Google Scholar, MS page iii. British Library reference C. 45. g. 13. This bible has hitherto been overlooked by historians and biblical scholars, perhaps because it has been stored in the Early Printed Collections of the British Museum, rather than in the Manuscript Students' Room.
67 Blackburne, Francis to Rev MrTurner, , from Monthly Magazine (12 1796), 888Google Scholar. Cited in Blackburne, F., ‘A Life of Francis Blackburne’, Works, 7 vols (London, 1804), I, iv–vGoogle Scholar.
68 For which, see Nichols's, JohnLiterary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (9 vols, London, 1812–1815), IV, 313, 323, 350–62Google Scholar.
69 The discovery of Law's annotated bible provides a valuable mirror to Jebb's two heavily annotated Greek testaments. Dr Williams's Library, Jebb MSS, 24, 168–73.
70 Paley, for his part, undertook the surprising measure of gently introducing the problems of text criticism and translation into his parochial sermons. For example, Sermons on Several Subjects, xxii (331) and xxvii (407–8) (2nd edn, London, 1808)Google Scholar. Paley's Greek testament, well stocked with annotations, is in the British Library (Add MS 12080). He replaced Disney as chaplain, and may well have assisted Law in his edition of Locke's, JohnWorks (1777)Google Scholar. Hitchin, N. W., ‘Probability and the Word of God: William Paley's Anglican method and the defence of the scriptures’, Anglican Theological Review, 77 (Summer, 1995), 396Google Scholar.
71 Pilkington's, Remarks upon several passages of Scripture, rectifying some errors in the printed Hebrew text (Cambridge and London, 1759)Google Scholar refers to ‘the uncouth and obsolete words and expressions that are met with in our English version’, though admitting their intelligibility and accuracy. But language had improved in ‘politeness and correctness since that version was made’, so that some people pretend to have delicate ears, and to be disgusted with every uncouth sound as an excuse for not reading the Bible.
72 Francis Blackburne to Theophilus Iindsey, 23 Feb. 1759, Dr Williams's Library MSS, 12. 52 (60)/2.
73 Free and Candid Disquisitions, 12–21.
74 Dr Williams's Library MSS, 12. 64/15.
75 This meant primarily dropping the Trinitarian creeds and prayers. Free and Candid Disquisitions, 22–157. Beilby Porteous described a copy of Benjamin Franklin's edited Prayer Book, in which Franklin used the excuse of shortening the service to make heavy amendments in doctrine. Lambeth Palace Library MS 2099/59 62, 130–2. See also Peaston, A. E., The Prayer Book Reform Movement of the XVIIIth Century (Oxford, 1940)Google Scholar, passim.
76 Reference to the ‘Editors of these papers, being intrusted with the care of them, by the Gentlemen, who were principally concerned in drawing them up’ (Free and Candid Disquisitions, i) seems to suggest that Jones was not alone in editing it. Blackburne disavowed any role in the project, apart from reading it over without making any comment or notation. The Calendar of the Correspondence of Philip Doddridge, DD (1702-1751) (Northamptonshire Record Society Publication, xxix), ed. Nuttall, G. F. (London, 1979)Google Scholar reveals the identities of several correspondents to include, besides Philip Doddridge, the MP George Lyttelton, Gilbert West and John Barker. The tone of their letters suggests that though friendly towards Jones, they did not hold him in unqualified regard, and were perhaps not wholly aware of the uses Jones was making of their letters. (See letters no. 1225, 1309, 1314, 1323–4, 1481, 1487.)
77 Free and Candid Disquisitions, v–ix. ‘The design, it seems, has been under consideration, and carrying on leisurely, from time to time, for some years. When the observations… were brought together… [and] digested into some order' it was presented to ‘a very eminent and worthy Prelate, with an humble request to his Lordship, that he would… communicate the contents of it to the Synod at one of their meetings’ (iii).
78 Sykes, N., Church and State in England in the XVIIIth Century (Cambridge, 1934), 385Google Scholar, quoting Herring to Newcastle, 12 Sept. 1748. BL Add MSS 32716/213.
79 Sykes, , Church and State, 385Google Scholar, quoting Herring to Newcastle, 10 Oct. 1754. BL Add MSS 35599/217.
80 Seeker Autobiography, 170.
81 Ibid., xix.
82 Ibid., xx.
83 Eight charges delivered to the clergy of the dioceses of Oxford and Canterbury: to which [is] added… a Latin speech intended to have been made at the opening of the convocation in 1761. Published from the original manuscripts by Porteous, Beilby, , D.D. and Stinton, George (London, 1769)Google Scholar.
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86 McCane, W., ‘Benjamin Kennicott: an eighteenth century researcher’, Journal of Theobgkal Studies (n.s., 10 1977), 28: 2, 445–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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88 History of the University of Oxford, v, 540. Antecedently, William Whiston responded to the deist Anthony Collins's argument that the scripture texts were simply too badly corrupted ever to be recovered, by urging ‘;“a Great Search” for the most ancient Hebrew copies “in all Parts of the World”.’ Force, J. E., ‘Hume and Johnson on Prophecy and Miracles: Historical Context’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 43 (1982), 469CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
89 Seeker contributed 10 guineas a year to this project from 1759 to 1766. Autobiography, 170.
90 He published annual reports for subscribers to the work from 1760 to 1769 (DNB).
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94 The collations included Spanish and Arabic MSS, and especially the text of the Syraic MS of Origen's Hexapla in the Ambrosian library in Milan. ‘Assistants are employed by him at Oxford; at the British Museum; at the Grand Duke's Library in Florence; in the ducal librar[ies] at Este [and] Parma; in the royal library at Turin; and in the Vatican, Caranattan, and Vallicellan libraries at Rome, and in that belonging to the College De Propaganda Fide in this last city.’ Letter 2: Bishop Newcome to Rev. Dr Joshua Toulmin, Waterford, 24 December 1788. Monthly Repository (1806), I, 457–8Google Scholar.
95 Newcome to Toulmin, 458.
96 Newcome, , Twelve Minor Prophets, xiiGoogle Scholar.
97 Ibid.
98 Bussby, W., Winchester Cathedral, 1079–1979 (London, 1979), 198, citing the Treasury BooksGoogle Scholar.
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102 Newcome to Toulmin, Waterford, 5 March 1794. Monthly Repository (1806), I, 519Google Scholar.
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105 N. Scarlett, ‘Preface’, Mew Testament.
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107 Monthly Repository (1817), XII, 66Google Scholar.
108 Ibid., 193.
109 A time-conscious man, Scarlett ‘estimated that it took 1 hour, 8 minutes to read the Gospel of Matthew; 1 hour, 9 minutes the Gospel of Mark; 2 minutes 2 John; the whole New Testament 14 hours’ (noted in Carpenter, E., ‘The Bible in the Eighteenth Century’, The Church's Use of the Bible, Past and Present, ed. Nineham, D. E. (London, 1963), 113Google Scholar.
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