Sawyer New Testament 1858 Edition

TGS Reprints this rare translation of the New Testament, and this edition includes a brief history of the New Testament translations.

From the Preface

THIS is not a work of compromises, or of conjectural interpretations of the sacred Scriptures, neither is it a paraphrase, but a strict literal rendering. It neither adds nor takes away; but aims to express the original with the utmost clearness, and force, and with the utmost precision. It adopts, however, except in the prayers, a thoroughly modern style, and makes freely whatever changes are necessary for this purpose.

Besides being a contribution to Biblical science, it is designed to be a still more important contribution to practical religion, for which the Bible in its original languages and in all its translations is chiefly valuable. The translation depends mainly on its superior adaptation to this end, under the blessing of God, for its success and usefulness. If it shall be found on trial to be a superior instrument of piety and virtue, it will doubtless meet with favor and do good. The ascendency of practical religion is not so general or complete, that any additional help for its promotion can be deemed unnecessary.

New translations of the Scriptures are generally introduced with apologies and received with caution and distrust. In many cases men have resisted them as dangerous innovations, and attempted to exterminate them with fire and sword. This was the case with the translations of Wickliffe and of Tindal. But truth and the kind providence of God were too mighty for their enemies, and these translations lived to see their persecutors in the dust, and to laugh them to scorn. Wickliffe's translation was published in 1380, in a dark age. Many good men anticipated from it the greatest calamities, and resisted it with the most intemperate zeal, and every species of denunciation was used against it. It was made from the Vulgate, and not from the Greek and Hebrew, and was imperfect; but it was a great improvement on what existed before, and it proved a great blessing.

Tindal was contemporary with Luther, and undertook to give a new translation of the Bible to England, as Luther did to Germany. He completed his New Testament against the greatest opposition, and published it in 1526, and was engaged on the Old Testament, when he was arrested, imprisoned a year, and then brought to the stake and strangled and burnt, at the age of fifty-nine, A.D. 1536. He was the morning star of the Reformation in England, and became by his translation of the New Testament and a part of the Old, and by the interest he excited in the subject of improved translations in England, one of the great benefactors of his race. He was a man of great gentleness, kindness, simplicity of character, and benevolence, and his life is without a stain. Coverdale translated the whole Bible, and published it in 1535 while Tindal was in prison waiting for his crown of martyrdom. Several other translations followed, and that of King James last of all, in 1611.

King James's translation was made by forty-seven translators, divided into six companies, and laboring on their work three years. The Douay Bible was first translated and published complete in 1609, almost simultaneously with the Bible of King James. It has the disadvantage of having been made from the Latin Vulgate, and not directly from the original Greek and Hebrew, but is a valuable version, and like the Bible of King James, is one of the great monuments of the times which produced it, as well as of the church which has adhered to it. It is good but not perfect; and it is hoped that its friends will not be unwilling to accept an improvement.

From the publication of Wickliffe's Bible in 1380, to that of Tindal's New Testament in 1526, was one hundred and forty-six years. From the publication of Tindal's New Testament in 1526, to that of King James's Bible in 1611, was eighty-five years. There was considerable progress made in knowledge, and the English language was considerably changed, in the interval of one hundred and forty-six years between the publication of Wickliffe's Bible and Tindal's New Testament. There was also considerable progress in knowledge, and some changes were made in the English language, in the interval of eighty-five years between the publication of Tindal's New Testament and King James's Bible.

The period that has elapsed between the publication of King James's Bible in 1611 and the present time (1858) is two hundred and forty-seven years, sixteen years more than the entire period from the publication of Wickliffe's Bible in 1380 to that of King James's in 1611. Besides, this has been a period of unparalleled activity in the investigation of Biblical subjects, and the prosecution of Biblical studies. Two hundred and forty-seven years, reckoning, thirty-three years to a generation, are seven generations and a half; and these seven generations and a half have been engaged in Biblical studies with unprecedented diligence and success, making great improvements in the text, detecting numerous interpolations and errors, making great improvements in the rendering, and detecting numerous errors in it; but the almost exclusive Bible of common life, of the family, the school, the church, and of private and devotional reading and study, with English Protestants, is still the Bible of King James, with its errors uncorrected, its interpolations unremoved, and its defects unsupplied.

Several new translations have been made since King James's time, but none of them have as yet been received with any considerable favor. King James's Bible, though extravagantly eulogized, was an excellent version for the times that produced it; yet it made much less improvement on the Bishop's Bible, the Geneva Bible, and Tindal's, Coverdale's, and others which it superseded, than Tindal's and Coverdale's did on Wickliffe's. Tindal, in the face of constant persecution, and cut off from many of the advantages and facilities which in more auspicious times he might have enjoyed, did more for the English Bible than all King James's translators. So did Luther for the Bible in Germany.

Excerpt

The Epistle of Judas

1 JUDAS, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to the beloved in God the Father, and the called who are kept by Jesus Christ. Mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.

2 Beloved, giving all diligence to write to you concerning the common salvation, I was under a necessity to write and exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. For some men have come in by deception, who were of old appointed to this judgment, impious, changing the grace of our God into lewdness, and denying our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

3 But I wish to remind you, though you once knew all, that the Lord having saved his people from Egypt, afterwards destroyed those that believed not, and the angels who kept not their own province, but left their habitation, he has kept under darkness in eternal chains, for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them, committing fornication in the same manner as these and going after unnatural lewdness, are made an example, enduring the punishment of eternal fire.

4 In like manner also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject government, and blaspheme glories. But Michael the arch-angel, when disputing with the devil he reasoned about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a charge of blasphemy, but said, The Lord rebuke you. But these blaspheme what they do not understand, and what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them; for they have gone in the way of Cain, and rushed into the error of Balaam for a reward, and perished in the contradiction of Korah. These are breakers at your love-feasts, feasting with you without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water driven about by winds, autumnal trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, wild waves of the sea foaming with their own shame, wandering stars to which is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

5 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of them, saying, Behold, the Lord came with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the wicked among them of all the deeds of impiety which they have impiously committed, and of all the hard speeches which impious sinners have spoken against him. These are complainers, censorious, walking after their inordinate desires, and their mouth speaks proud words, showing admiration of persons for the sake of gain.

6 But do you, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they said to you, That in the last time there shall be scoffers, walking in their own impious desires. These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith, pray with the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And reprove some, separatists, and some save, plucking them from the fire, but have mercy on others with fear, hating even the garment that is defiled by the flesh.

7 And to him that is able to keep you without falling, and to present you blameless before his glory, with great joy, to God our only Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power and authority before all worlds, both now and for ever more; amen.