New Bibles

Aiming to be "American in the sense that the writings of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Wilson are American," a new Bible came off the presses last fortnight printed and bound like any novel. Eleventh version in English since King James I's 54 scholars issued their revision in 1611, The American Bible is newly translated from the original texts, result of some six years of labor by five able savants.* Secular in appearance but convenient to the eye are its single-column pages, dialog in quotation marks, with subtitles and paragraph headings; verse numbers are set in the margins. Its advertised modernity caused captious critics to hunt up expressions which are not current in the U. S. A Chicago reader, for example, found "footpad" (see below) and triumphed briefly until it was discovered that the Chicago Tribune currently uses the word.

Excerpts, compared with passages in the King James Version:

King James American Bible Version Psalm 23 The Lord is my Shepherd," I shall not want ; herd; I shall not want. In green meadows he he He the dawn in still maketh leadeth makes me lie down; To refreshing waters lie leads me. . . . St. Luke: 23: 43-46 And he said to him, And Jesus said unto "I tell you, you will him, Verily I say unto be in today!" Paradise with me thee, Today shall lkolt be with me in paradise. It was now about And it was about the noon, and darkness sixth hour, and there-'came over the whole was a darkness over all country, and lasted un the earth until the ninth til three in the after hour. noon, us the sun was And the sun was in eclipse. And the darkened, and the veil curtain before the sanc of the temple was rent tuary was torn in two. in the midst. Then Jesus gave a loud And when Jesus had cry, and said, cried with a loud voice, "Father, I intrust my he said, Father, into thy Spirit to your hands!" hands I commend my With these words he spirit: and having said expired. thus, he gave up the ghost. Proverbs: 6: 9-11 How long will you How long wilt thou He, O sluggard? sleep, O sluggard? When will you rise When wilt thou arise from your sleep? out of thy sleep? "A little sleep, a Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, little slumber, a little A little folding of folding of the hands to hands to rest" --sleep: So will poverty come So shall thy poverty upon you like a footpad, come as one that trav-And want like an armed ellcth, and thy want as man. an armed man. A lush garden of Biblical interpretations, notes, pronouncing guides, charts, digests, maps and concordances is available in a new Analytical Indexed Bible, edited by Dr. James R. Kaye, able Bible scholar.-- Like the American Bible, it is revised textually in light of contemporary Hebraic discoveries, but its style is essentially that of the King James Version.

* John Merlin Powis Smith (Old Testament Editor) professor of Semitic Languages & Literatures at the University of Chicago; Professor Alexander Reid Gordon of the University of St. Andrews: Professor Theophile J. Meek of the University of Toronto; Professor Leroy Waterman of the University of Michigan; Professor Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (New Testament) of Chicago. Printed at University of Chicago Press ($3.50). * John A. Dickson Publishing Co., Chicago: $7.75 to $18.75, depending upon format.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.