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Old 02-07-2009, 10:38 PM
Steven Avery Steven Avery is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 462
Default Thomas Francis Cheyne - jigsaw puzzle textual adjustment

Hi Folks,

The Reformation high view of the words of God changed in the 1800s, when the criticisms came forth, strongly influenced by the German scholarship, which became the cutting edge of a dull knife.

And only in the last decades has there been a revival of understanding of Psalm 12 more fully for the words of God. (Early strong exceptions being George Campbell Morgan in 1906 and Benjamin Wilkinson around 1930.)

In the late 1800s Thomas Francis Cheyne :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kelly_Cheyne
Thomas Kelly Cheyne - Wikipedia (1841-1915)

English divine and Biblical critic ... Oxford University ... studied German theological methods at Göttingen... joint editor of the Encyclopaedia Biblica (London, 1899–1903), a work embodying the more advanced conclusions of English biblical criticism. In the introduction to his Origin of the Psalter (London, 1891) he gave an account of his development as a critical scholar. His publications include translations, commentaries, and supplemental research ... became a member of the Bahá'í Faith by 1914.


was one of the big names in techie textual circles. And even wrote an interesting letter about some of the other attempted retranslations (tamperings - e.g. changing "a furnace of earth") with our verses in the Expository Times in 1897. Issues which we have not made our focus in this thread, yet are quite fascinating as an adjunct learning course !

However when it came to his own version of Psalm 12 Cheyne is an excellent example of the awkwardness of the modern translations/interps. In order to deal with the problem of the 'generation for ever' not fitting smoothly (with his interp) Cheyne even went so far as to move verses around to 'smooth' the difficulties !

http://books.google.com/books?id=9vrwGw99qy4C&pg=PA14
The Book of Psalms - Thomas Kelly Cheyne (1884)

The words of Jehovah are pure words,
silver smelted, seven times refined.
All around, the ungodly walk to and fro,
Thou, Jehovah, shalt keep us,
and shalt guard us from this generation for ever.

Ver. 8 is placed before ver. 7, because " this generation " points back to "the ungodly. (p.219)


Error begets error.

Shalom,
Steven

Last edited by Steven Avery; 02-07-2009 at 10:54 PM.