I Believe There Is Not A Single
Individual Amongst Them, Who Has Read The Whole Of The Old Testament;
Nor
Do I think that among eastern Christians in general there is one in
a thousand, of those who can read,
That has ever taken that trouble.
They content themselves, in general, with their prayer-books, liturgies,
and histories of saints; few of them read the gospels, though more do so
in Syria than in Egypt; the reading of the whole of the scripture is
discountenanced by the clergy; the wealthy seldom have the inclination
to prosecute the study of the Holy writings, and no others are able to
procure a manuscript copy of the Bible, or one printed in the two
establishments in Mount Libanus. The well meant endeavours of the Bible
Society in England to supply them with printed copies of the Scriptures
in Arabic, if not better directed than they have hitherto been, will
produce very little effect in these countries. The cost of such a copy,
trifling as it may seem in England, is a matter of importance to the
poor Christians of the east; the Society has, besides, chosen a version
which is not current in the east, where the Roman translation alone is
acknowledged by the Clergy, who easily make their flocks believe that
the Scriptures have been interpolated by the Protestants. It would,
perhaps, have been better if the Society, in the beginning at least, had
furnished the eastern Christians with cheap copies of the Gospels and
Psalms only, which being the books chiefly in use among them in
manuscript,
[p.585] would have been not only useful to them, but more approved of by
the directors of their consciences, than the entire Scripture. Upon
Mohammedans, it is vain to expect that the reading of the present Arabic
version of the Bible should make the slightest impression. If any of
them were brought to conquer their inherent aversion to the book, they
could not read a page in it without being tired and disgusted with its
style. In the Koran they possess the purest and most elegant composition
in their language, the rhythmical prose of which, exclusive of the
sacred light in which they hold it, is alone sufficient to make a strong
impression upon them. The Arabic of the greater part of the Bible, on
the contrary, and especially that of the Gospels, is in the very worst
style; the books of Moses and the Psalms are somewhat better.
Grammatical rules, it is true, are observed, and chosen terms are
sometimes employed; but the phraseology and whole construction is
generally contrary to the spirit of the language, and so uncouth, harsh,
affected, and full of foreign idioms, that no Musselman scholar would be
tempted to prosecute the study of it, and a few only would thoroughly
understand it. In style and phraseology it differs from the Koran more
than the monkish Latin from the orations of Cicero.
I will not take upon me to declare how far the Roman and the Society’s
Arabic translation of the Old Testament are defective, being unable to
read the original Hebrew text; but I can affirm that they both disagree,
in many instances, from the English translation.
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