See here; the same OP requests apply to this new thread.
I just received, via INTERLIBRARY LOAN, a copy of Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1936), by Charles Cutler Torrey, [then] Professor of Semitic Languages in Yale University.
I have found Torrey's work to be very interesting, so I have decided to share as much of it as I can via threads here at TWeb. In this thread, in posts that follow, I propose to present excerpts from the Preface and Introduction to Torrey's Our Translated Gospels.
To be continued...
I just received, via INTERLIBRARY LOAN, a copy of Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1936), by Charles Cutler Torrey, [then] Professor of Semitic Languages in Yale University.
I have found Torrey's work to be very interesting, so I have decided to share as much of it as I can via threads here at TWeb. In this thread, in posts that follow, I propose to present excerpts from the Preface and Introduction to Torrey's Our Translated Gospels.
PREFACE
The material of our Four Gospels is all Palestinian, and the language in which it was originally written is Aramaic, then the principle language of the land; with the exception of the first two chapters of Luke, which were composed in Hebrew. Each of the first two Gospels, Mark and Matthew, was rendered into Greek very soon after it was put forth. The Gospel of John was translated considerably later, probably at Ephesus. (The translator added, in Greek, chapter 21) Luke made in Palestine, very likely during the two years of Paul's imprisonment at imprisonment at Caesarea (Acts 24:27), a collection of Semitic documents relating to the life and work of Jesus, arranged them very skillfully, and then rendered the whole into the Greek that is our Third Gospel.
The proof of these facts in multiform, and of very large amount. The present volume can give merely "some of the evidence," in fact only that small but very important part which can be seen and understood by the layman who knows neither Greek nor any Semitic language. The main purpose is to present the most striking of mistranslation in our Greek; for these, when they can be demonstrated, are of the greatest significance. The critical notes appended to my translation, The Four Gospels (Harpers, 1933), had in large part this same purpose, but were much too brief and obscure, not showing clearly the form of the supposed error; also, in some of the most important passages, they were made useless to the ordinary reader by referring to discussions in publications generally inaccessible to him.
The material of our Four Gospels is all Palestinian, and the language in which it was originally written is Aramaic, then the principle language of the land; with the exception of the first two chapters of Luke, which were composed in Hebrew. Each of the first two Gospels, Mark and Matthew, was rendered into Greek very soon after it was put forth. The Gospel of John was translated considerably later, probably at Ephesus. (The translator added, in Greek, chapter 21) Luke made in Palestine, very likely during the two years of Paul's imprisonment at imprisonment at Caesarea (Acts 24:27), a collection of Semitic documents relating to the life and work of Jesus, arranged them very skillfully, and then rendered the whole into the Greek that is our Third Gospel.
The proof of these facts in multiform, and of very large amount. The present volume can give merely "some of the evidence," in fact only that small but very important part which can be seen and understood by the layman who knows neither Greek nor any Semitic language. The main purpose is to present the most striking of mistranslation in our Greek; for these, when they can be demonstrated, are of the greatest significance. The critical notes appended to my translation, The Four Gospels (Harpers, 1933), had in large part this same purpose, but were much too brief and obscure, not showing clearly the form of the supposed error; also, in some of the most important passages, they were made useless to the ordinary reader by referring to discussions in publications generally inaccessible to him.
To be continued...
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