Moffatt, New Translation
Encyclopedia
Moffatt, New Translation (MNT) is an abbreviation of the title, "The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, a New Translation" by James Moffatt
.
In the Introduction to his 1926 edition, Moffatt wrote, "The aim I have endeavoured to keep before my mind in making this translation has been to present the books of the Old and the New Testament in effective, intelligible English. No translation of an ancient classic can be quite intelligible, it is true, unless the reader is sufficiently acquainted with its environment to understand some of its flying allusions and characteristic metaphors. But something may be done and, I am convinced, 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. The Bible is not always what it seems to those who read it in the great prose of the English version, or, indeed, in any of the conventional versions. What it is, may be partly suggested by a new rendering, such as the following pages present, that is, a fresh translation of the original, not a revision of any English version."
James Moffatt
James Moffatt was a theologian and graduate of Glasgow University.Moffatt trained at the Free Church College, Glasgow, and was a practising minister before becoming Professor of Greek and New Testament Exegesis at Mansfield College, Oxford in 1911. He returned to Glasgow in 1915 as Professor of...
.
In the Introduction to his 1926 edition, Moffatt wrote, "The aim I have endeavoured to keep before my mind in making this translation has been to present the books of the Old and the New Testament in effective, intelligible English. No translation of an ancient classic can be quite intelligible, it is true, unless the reader is sufficiently acquainted with its environment to understand some of its flying allusions and characteristic metaphors. But something may be done and, I am convinced, 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. The Bible is not always what it seems to those who read it in the great prose of the English version, or, indeed, in any of the conventional versions. What it is, may be partly suggested by a new rendering, such as the following pages present, that is, a fresh translation of the original, not a revision of any English version."