JEWISH TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14975, 23 May 1914, Page 16

JEWISH TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

Since 1898 a Jewish translation into English of the Old Testament has been in progress, and the work is now finished. It has Eoea carried; out by a group of American Jewish scholars, prominent among -whom are Dr. Cyrus Adler and Dr. Joseph Jacobs. The responsible editors are Dr. Jastrow. Dr. K. Kohler, and Dr. de Sola "Vlendes. ! The fina .trial responsibility has been borne chiefly by Mr Jacobs Schiff, the ban£er, and the translation is appearing under the auspices of the Jewish Publication Society* of America. Writing of this new version a Jewish correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" says:— '"This translation will probably become the standard Jewish rendering into English, but it is nos the first. English-speaking; Jews, whatever their admiration for the Authorised Version as a literary achievement, find it satis r - -"tory. partly because in numerous places* the translation is erroneous or* perverted to support a dogma, and partly because it is printed with marginal or head notes of a Christian tendency. . . None of these renderings (made since 1&40) has gained a foothold, because, whatever their other merits, they have no literary attraction. The new American version is intended to combine the Jewish point. of view, modern scholarship, the literary quality. It remains to b© seen whether, it will succeed where its predecessors hare failed. Certainly it is the most elaborate, the best organised, ancf the most responsible venture of the kind."

Canada, vho rcceatly renewed his long acquaintance with Rome, -w-here he spent several years as student of tie Beda. is to be congratulated on a letter addressed to him on his work by the Cardinal Secretary o f State, winch was published in a recent number of the ''Acta .Apostolicae Sedis." In it his Eminence says:—"The Holy FiiU'flr applauds this uoblo and salutary initiative, tho scope of which is to offer t.o Catholic immigrran'.s. without distinction ot nationality, who intend to settle !in Camnla. to those ever-growinp: rnimbers whom the wants and necessities of life oblige to leave their families and their native land to seek abroad a better lot and an amelioration of their material condition—to offer them, I say, and to procure for them not only temporal assistance and projection, but the inestimable and still more necessary l*;nefits of moral and religious assistance and protection " Tho whole subject of emigration is now en tragi ng the attention of the Consistorial Congregation, in which a special department has been set apart for settling- nil ouestions; arising out of the Erreii* modern movement of peoples. To tho already stringent pro-visions made by the Congregation of the Council conrerninsr Ttalian priests who wish to follow their countrymen to America a risroroue supervision and control is now being .-u'ded by tho ConsjV.ori.il in order |o obviate certain evils which occurred in ibo past.