Moffatt New Translation

The aim of the translator, James Moffatt, a doctor of divinity, was to present the Old and New Testaments in effective, intelligible English. No translation of an ancient classic can be quite intelligible unless the reader is sufficiently acquainted with its environment to understand some of its flying allusions and characteristic metaphors. The translator felt that ought to be done at the present day to offer the unlearned a transcript of the Biblical literature as it lies in the light thrown upon it by modern research. A real translation is in the main an interpretation. To the best of his ability he has tried to be exact and idiomatic.

The initial difficulties in making a new version are started by the text used. The traditional or “massoretic” text of the Old Testament, though of primary value, is often desparately corrupt. At points where the text was in such disrepair that no conjecture could heal it, he inserted three dots. A longer line of dots in the poetical books indicated the original text was missing or it was in too much disrepair.

Some Hebrew terms have no English equivalent which corresponds to the original meaning. Something is dropped if they pass from Hebrew to English. The Tetragrammaton is rendered “the Eternal,” except in an enigmatic title like “the Lord of Hosts,” although the translator would have preferred to use “Yahweh.”

The text used for the New Testament was that of H. von Soden, whose critical edition of the Greek New Testament based upon unprecedented researches, appeared during the first decade of the twentieth century. Quotations or direct reminiscences of the Old Testament are printed in italics.

Genesis 1: 1, 2
When God began to form the universe, the world was void and vacant, darkness lay over the abyss; but the spirit of God was hovering over the waters, … .

John 1: 1 – 3
The Logos existed in the very beginning,
the Logos was with God,
the Logos was divine.
He was with God in the very beginning:
through him all existence came into being,
no existence came into being apart from him.

The following comparative studies include this version:

1. Additions and Omissions in the Synoptic Gospels
2. Burden and Yoke to Be Removed
3. Commandments or Clean Robes?
4. Entering His Rest
5. Falsifying Scribes
6. From Eternity or From Ancient Times?
7. Fringe on the Borders of a Garment
8. Horses from Egypt and Kue
9. Lord Is My Shepherd: An Anthology
10. Name of Our Heavenly Father
11. Offering Sacrifices to the He-Goat
12. Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread
13. Sabbaths and Sundown
14. Scripture Inspired by God
15. Seventy Weeks of Daniel 9
16. Sides of the Court of the Tabernacle
17. Speech Problem of Moses
18. That Which Will Happen Before the End
19. Those Who Work Iniquity
20. Time of Peleg
21. Tragedy at Beth-Shemesh
22. Words with Heathen Origins in the Scriptures