As distinct from the Revised Version and the American Standard Version of the Bible, which are admittedly revisions of the familiar Authorized Version, there have since appeared several translations whose background is somewhat different. Those who prepared them make no particular effort to adhere to the phraseology of the King James rendering, or to revise it. Their aim is rather to free themselves from presuppositions in the matter of translation and to go direct to the Hebrew and Greek texts, as these texts have been preserved, studied, and to some extent reconstructed, in the light of modern research.
Those who are inclined to be startled by recent colloquial or semi-colloquial renderings of the New Testament, might well recall that the New Testament itself was originally written in colloquial, not classical, Greek; that is, it was set down in the vernacular of the day; and this in itself is one of the most telling arguments in favor of modern vernacular versions of the Bible. The position of the Biblical translators of our day, as expressed by one of themselves, is that "a translation to be fully grasped must be in the idiom of current speech" (Prof. Leroy Waterman: in "Journal of Bible and Religion"—July-September, 1937), while such translators have the benefit of whatever new light has been cast upon the Scriptures as the result of recent discoveries. Speaking of the period from 1900 to 1937, Dr. Waterman contends that in it "roughly one may say that ... we have advanced about two hundred years nearer to the original scriptures" (loc. cit.).
One of the earliest of the better known "modern" versions, the Twentieth Century New Testament (1898-1901), was followed in 1903 by Dr. Weymouth's fine rendering of the New Testament, which gives a dignified translation of the Greek into the idiom of our day. The fifth edition of this rendering, ably revised by Dr. J. A. Robertson on the basis of subsequent discoveries, appeared in 1930. Among the work of contemporary translators, that of Dr. James Moffatt is particularly outstanding, in that he has provided us with a fresh but scholarly rendering of the whole Bible, a rendering which has met with wide and well-deserved acceptance on both sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Moffatt's New Testament was first published in 1913, and the Old Testament in 1924, while the two have since appeared in one volume, which Dr. S. Parkes Cadman once described as "entitled to an honored and necessary place in the library of every man." Another modern rendering, which likewise merits close attention and study, is characterized as "The Bible: An American Translation." It appeared in 1931, the Old Testament being translated by a group of scholars under the editorship of Dr. J. M. P. Smith; while Professor Edgar J. Goodspeed is responsible for the New Testament. Professor Beatrice Brooks refers to it as "great literature," while she also notes its faithfulness to the original texts (cf. "Journal of Bible and Religion" January-March, 1937).
