I am sending you your paper that I have actually taken with me. I was afraid to send such a big notebook by post. I add some lines.
The Keri[1] says: “read”. The Massorites did not dare to change the text even when there would have been an obvious mistake, but they wrote in the margin: “read thus”. It would therefore be the lessons or variations which are almost always better than the text. De Wette[2] has given the Keri in his “Annotations”. De Wette’s translation does not satisfy me. The “consumption determined” is an expression employed in Isaiah 10: 23; 28: 22 to signify the afflictions of Israel, it seems to me, in those days which precede the reign of the Messiah, whether they be found in Israel or on Jerusalem. The use of these words in Daniel 9: 27 is very remarkable. This has led me to other remarks. The last word in [chapter] 9: 27 is, save in this passage, always translated by “the desolated”. There are good dictionaries that only give this sense. Once elsewhere, the most a remarkable form of a verbal infinitive is used in an active sense. “Desolated” is not the same word as “desolator” in the same verse. For in [chapter] 11: 31, it is the abomination of the desolator. [In chapter] 12: 11, it is the last word from [chapter] 9: 27, that is to say perhaps the desolated. You will find that the examination of chapters 10 and 28 of Isaiah on these two points of the indignation and the consumption determined shed a great light on Daniel. The Assyrian is seen there very clearly and the overflowing flood on account of their covenant with evil.
I hope that the Lord will restore our dear brother C to a soft and loving state. I hope that a sincere and cordial love will be shown towards him. The faults of which you speak are not like others that perhaps annoy our neighbours less, but are none the less bad in the sight of our God.
I just write some lines on the subject of our notes about the Lausanne translation[218]. Probably I am well behind their work. I have had quite some hesitation on the subject of these notes, having the feeling, not at all that my thoughts have to be received, but that they will be a bit too tied by their current system to receive them even when they are true. However, in the gospels and even more in the Acts, a book almost entirely historical, these difficulties did not enter the reckoning much, and I was happy to labour as under-worker if, by this means, something could be added to the exactitude of a translation of the Bible in which all the French-speaking church of God is interested. Now, having come to the epistles, this concerns me a bit more. Moreover, I do not know if I am too late as to the work for me add significantly to their work. Finally, I would like to know what you think and how far they have reached at this point in time. There are grave questions about the law, and even language difficulties, in that the French hardly knows how to render abstract thoughts. “Works of law”, if this could be said, is quite another thing from “works of the law”. For I believe that the apostle often aims to make things clear by means of a very abstract proposition. Now, as to the French, it is clear that our friends would be in a position to make the handling of a language which is theirs easier, to get closer at least to the accuracy of Greek, if there was agreement as to the sense of this Greek. Without this, one would work a bit ineffectively, because one would not be seeking to reproduce the sense. I take just the word ‘law’ as an example. I believe that their work is a very important work. I am quite happy to work on this basis for the good of all, and being a foreigner as to the language, to do it in my study, unknown outside this limit. It is what should be. If the work is well done, our brethren will profit from it as others, as well as the whole French church. Being come to this point of the work where doctrines are developed in detail, I am stopping for a moment only to know whether my labour will truly contribute something to the work. There are notions about translation that I reckon to be small, that is nothing to me; it is their work, and I only work at the quarries and on the mountain as a worker of Hiram, while accepting my wages from the true Solomon, and they are good. I am very satisfied with it, because I profit a lot from it myself. My question is only if you think that I can still be useful to them in the task to which they have devoted themselves. Say to me a word thereupon. Greet the brethren much. I think I am blessed and happy, by the grace of God. In haste.
Yours very affectionately
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Letter originally written in French, translated by Sosthenes, 2013
Click here for original – If you have any comments on the translation, feel free to let me know.
Just a few words. I do not reply to what you have said about the fourth class of the first resurrection. The thing interests me a lot, because it is found in so many passages and even, almost, in so many truths, that one ought to examine it in a rather close way to be able to form any judgment. As soon as I shall have been able to do so, I shall say something to you about it. It also links to some thoughts which I have on Revelation 14, but I so feel my ignorance on these points that it would be madness to say too much about it; it is true that this makes it all the more interesting to look into. I only believe that it is evil to rush to establish a system thereupon, because of the smallness of our minds, by virtue of the One for whom the system, or rather the revelation has gone out. We know in part; we accept (by faith) isolated truths. The linking of these truths comes from the activity of our mind. I do not say that the Holy Spirit does not help us – why would we doubt it? – but it is no longer a revelation properly speaking, and the sum is always incomplete, so that if we limit ourselves however it may be to this, other truths are excluded, lose their power, and the soul and fellowship with the brethren (who have perhaps understood other truths) suffer from it. As to the translation[1], I work remotely from most of my resources – books in fact, so that I present my notes as being able to serve for common usefulness, and, in this work, it is evidently a matter of recognising that. I acknowledge in this translation (the one which exists), a conscientious task, but careful examination which I have made has convinced me that it is sometimes a little less literal than I had [previously] thought. This is what I have done lately in a task which I undertook on the English New Testament: in the beginning, I had not thought of critical improvements of the received text. As I am travelling (for I worked on it only at moments of leisure), I have my Tischendorf as travel book. Now I have stopped for a short time: I have an edition with the text by Scholz in the margin, the received text, that of Griesbach, Scholz and Tischendorf[2]. If there is agreement between them, and the witnesses show in the true text in an unequivocal manner, I accept it. If there is a variance of some importance, depending on a good number of witnesses, I put in the margin, ‘several’, or ‘some’ read this or that thing. I do not touch the question when this becomes a critical affair, because it is a question of a translation and not of a critical edition. If all those who have examined the text are agreed, it is a folly to give a bad reading. In the case where there is a large number of authorities for a thing, I can tell historically that this fact exists, but I do not enter critical domain as such. I use it, but I do not initiate it; it is not my work there.
Tomorrow, I shall send, I think, notes on Matthew; the others will follow shortly, with God’s help. The comments on epistles will be very important otherwise. I have followed the way of the translations in my notes.
As to the passage in Revelation 5: 9, 10, the text is indeed confused, such that one must not insist much doctrinally on that which is variant in this passage. Scholz reads: (ἡμῶν – hemon) we in v 9. Griesbach also; the only old manuscript of the Revelation rejects it. At verse 10, Scholz and Griesbach read τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν βασιλείαν (tō theō ēmōn basileian)[3] (“thou hast made them kings, etc”) with the great majority of witnesses. Scholz and Griesbach retain βασιλείαν (“kings”). A Copt, Vulg are the authorities for βασιλεία – basileia (“kingdom”). There are almost as many witnesses, more even, for “they will reign”, than for “they reign”, but the only old manuscript cited favours the last reading …
There remains a question about the four living creatures, which you have not yet raised. Are they the symbols of a certain character of power, which we find manifested in the service of certain beings which are not necessarily always the same? Is it a seraph? It is only found in Isaiah 6, save the brazen serpent. I doubt a bit your teaching on the priesthood. It has to be shown first that there was one which was not of the character of that of Melchisedec. “They shall reign over the earth” does not signify the seat of sovereignty but its object.
I have been interrupted and I stop. Peace be with you, dear brother. May God deign to keep the brethren in simplicity and humility, and may their hearts be united. May He make them prosper under the breath of His Spirit. Greet our dear friends very affectionately on my behalf. May the presence of God in Spirit be in the midst of you all; there is our joy. The only thing which gives me sorrow in Herzog’s pamphlet[4] is that it is a brother; apart from that, it is only not to be taken account of.
Yours very affectionately
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[1] The 2nd edition of the Bible translated at Lausanne. Motivated by the conviction that the Scriptures communicate the very mind of God, a group of Piétistes Protestants set to work in Lausanne on a tranaslation under the direction of Louis Gaussen, and then Louis Burnier. The New Testament appeared initially in 1839, then the Psalms in 1854 and the remainder of the Old Testment between 1861 and 1872. This Bible of Lausanne did not have a wide readership itself, but provided a foundation for a later Bible, the Louis Ségond Bible, which became a classic version. This Lausanne Bible was not a revision, but a scholarly concordant Bible, not really fit for wide use.
[2] In the revised Preface to second edition of the New Testament (1871), JND says – ‘In my first edition my translation was formed on the concurrent voice of Griesbach, Lachmann, Scholz, and Tischendorf: the first of soberer judgment and critical acumen and discernment; the next with a narrower system of taking only the very earliest MSS, so that sometimes he might have only one or two; the third excessively carelessly printed, but taking the mass of Constantinopolitan MSS as a rule’
[3] These Greek insertions have been inferred and need to be checked – see note to Letter No 143
[4] Editor’s note:- ‘a pamphlet hostile of the writer of the letter’. Professor J J Herzog of Lausanne wrote – ‘The Plymouth Brethren or Darby and his followers in the canton of Vaud, its relationship to the dissident’s municipalities and to the national church’, published in the Protestant Church Newspaper in 1844
Letter originally written in French, translated by Sosthenes, 2013
Click here for original – If you have any comments on the translation, feel free to let me know.
I have read your chart, on the words έπιφάλεια – epiphaleia, φαυερόω – phaueroa, άποκάλυψις – apokalupsis, with some attention. I have gone over your second chart on the gospels, and I seize a moment to say a word to you. But first, I will communicate to you my critical remarks on the words; I have made these after having examined all the passages anew.
… έπιφάλεια – epiphaleia (cf 1 Tim 6: 14; 2 Tim 1: 10; 2 Thess 2: 8) means appearing to me, not revelation, as if one went out of a place where one had been hidden beforehand. Without doubt, appearing is necessarily opposed to the idea of being hidden, but it is the fact of being seen or visible, of appearing, as the sun shines. He has appeared; He will appear anew. That is to say that there will be a state of things in which He will not be hidden, or as non-existent (save for faith), but where He will be apparent. It is not the act of coming out as [….Ω….][1]. But the state of shining so that He is visible. Without doubt, the thing will be true, as soon as His [….Ω….] and His [….Ω….] but it remains true afterwards.
… φαυερόω – phaueroo is in contrast with what He has been beforehand, to be hidden although existing, and of a known existence. This term only applies to us when our life has been presented as hidden with Christ in God (Col 3: 4[2]).
… άποκάλυψις – apokalupsi (cf Rom 8: 19; 1 Cor 1: 7; 1 Pet 1: 7[3]) is said more often of someone who has the right to appear in glory and who appears thus, to the confusion, indeed, of those who have not wanted to recognise the glory. And this term is applied either to judgment or to glory; it is something glorious which shines out.
… φαυερόω – phaueroo signifies putting on the record and is applied to sin (Eph 5: 13; 1 Cor 4: 5; Luke 8: 17; Mark 4: 22, etc.).
… αρουσία – arousia signifies presence in contrast with absence, and also the fact of becoming present after having been absent. (1 Cor 16: 17; 2 Cor 7: 6 present this latter sense, and Phil 2: 12; 2 Cor 10: 10 the former). This word evidently gives us the idea of His presence in the midst of the scene in which are our affections, our fears, our hopes, our joys, our sorrows, and where His presence or His absence can act on these things. So that the presence of Christ in the creation answers to the hopes and affections of the person who speaks of it. In a general way, it is His coming into the scene from which He is currently absent. If my soul is occupied with heavenly thoughts, it will meet Him in heaven; if on earthly things, it hails His coming into this world, so that this word applies to one and the other to His coming to receive the church in the air, and to His coming on the earth to accomplish the designs and the judgment of God there.
These remarks may bring some modification to the expression of someone with your ideas, but they are in general in accord with your chart and perhaps resolve some difficulties which remain on the word [….Ω….].
As to the marriage of the Lamb, it seems to me that it would be better not to put anything else, but to leave aside what concerns the Jews and the parables. I am totally in agreement with what you say on the marriage itself, but your interpretation of the parable of the virgins presents difficulties which, for me, are insurmountable. It would be necessary first that a remnant of the Jews should be with the Lord, as His friends, before the marriage. There is no bride here, because, in this case, Jerusalem on the earth will be the bride. I do not believe that it is a question of the marriage of the Lamb in Luke 12: 36; it is only a similitude of what the disciples would have to be as to their moral state.
As to Daniel 11, my present conviction is that from v 21 to 35 is history. The named person in these verses is not the last king, for historically it is not the case, but the last here (save at v 40) because it is him who has been the type of the Antichrist. At verses 36-39, it is the Antichrist himself. I have said, thinking of Daniel, that certain brethren considered verses 21-35 as speaking of the Antichrist, but that my conviction was what I have just said to you.
Having made these remarks in all liberty, so that you can use them as you wish, I can tell you that in general your chart has given me great pleasure and, if you put aside the explanation of the parables, I believe it would be profitable to the brethren. I do not impose all my thoughts on the parables but, in such a summary, this will lend more to controversy than to edification because the chart is presented to be consulted as a whole, and not as a treatise where the question would be debated. If you like to publish your thoughts under the form of a treatise, I do not see anything wrong at all, only I urge you to reconsider it first.
Greet all the brethren affectionately. May the peace of our God, His grace and mercy, be in abundance with you and all His dear children. In haste.
Your affectionate brother
Letter originally written in French, translated by Sosthenes, 2013
Click here for original – If you have any comments on the translation, feel free to let me know.
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