To the Editor of the Norr-Cuina Daty News"
Si—Allow me to enter an car-your of nest pr of
Goodspeed's New Testament, To say that the tone is disrespectful is to put it mildly. One wonders by what right a reviewer assumes infallibility and proceeds to tell responsible publisher he has brought a "horror" to China. He might at least acknowledge that the Commercial Press is, not under obligation to consult him about its own business. I for tone hope the Press will decline your reviewer's gratuitous advice to withdraw this publication "as quickly as possible."
Whether we like it or not, we can never again have One Bible, and it ig folly to quote one version against another. Each version is an attempt to translate the thought of the Bible writers into another language. Prof. Good-speed is a competent Greek scholar and he has made an honest, and many think a very successful, attempt to put the New Testa. ment into the common speech of the American people. Of course two persons will' agree on every detail, either of scholarship or taste. But all must agree that the effort to bring the oracles of God to the people in their own language is worthy of praise, It is to imitate the Biblical writers themselves, who wrote in the langu. age (KOINE) of the common people of their day.
De gustibus nit disputandum: but I may be permitted to call attention to two items which your reviewer selects for a drop of his lunar caustic. Acts 12:15, "Thou art mad". (A.V.); "You are crazy" (Goodspeed). " The fact is that "mad" in present-day English means angry; and a group. of friends to-day in such a situation would say ito ' Rhoda—"Woman, you're out of your head," or perhaps the one word "nonsense." Certainly no one of such a company would climb up on a pair of stilts and say solemnly "Thou art mad!" In Cor. 13:12, Paul says "For now we see by means of a mirror in an enigma" (literal translation.) Anyone may choose—' cording to taste—which now we are looking at a dim reflection in a mirror" (Goodspeed) or or now we seo through a glass darkly" (A.V.) May T hazard a guess? "T'guess your reviewer, When he was a child as I did, looked at an eclipse of the sun through a smoked glass!
Tam, ete,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.