Farrar Fenton Bible?

[JFox1]

Yesterday I bought from a used book store a Bible translated by Ferrar Fenton, a British business man (1832-1920). I have never heard of this translation before, and I have the Bible in 35 English translations.

It has some really strange renderings. Check out Genesis 1:1-2: By periods God created that which produced the Solar Systems; then that which produced the Earth. But the Earth was unorganized and empty, and darkness covered its convulsed surface, while the breath of God rocked the surface of the waters.

The footnote says: Literally, "By Headships," It is curious that all translators from the Septuagent have rendered this word B'reshith, into the singular, but it is plural in the Hebrew. So I render it accurately. F.F.

The footnote in the Book of Jonah states, NOTE - Ch. 2.. v. I. "Great Fish" was the name of the ship mistranslated "Whale" in the version of the Greek translators , whose blunder has been repeated by all subsequent translators, in all languages, to the perplexity of their readers until I decided to go back to the original statement of the prophet in his own Hebrew. -F.F.

In other words, Fenton is saying that Jonah wasn't really swallowed by a whale but was rescued by a ship named "Great Fish." WHAT????????????

Has anyone on this board heard of the Ferrar Fenton translation? What do you think of this translation?

 

[D.W.Washburn]

Interesting...

http://www.bibletexts.com/bibliogr/01bib-e.htm

Includes this assessment of the Ferrar Fenton Bible:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Fenton's New Testament in Modern English, by Ferrar Fenton (New York: Oxford University Press, 1905) - (MBE). Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht (So Many Versions: Twentieth Century English Versions of the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975, page 210) comment:[/FONT]

• • [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Farrar Fenton was a London businessman who devoted some twenty years of his life to fulfill a pledge of making the Scriptures intelligible "through the use of modern English." This work by an amateur was popular for a time, but "its erroneous and inaccurate renderings have rather damaged its earlier favor" (Price).[/FONT]

And wikipedia's entry on the Fenton Bible notes that some branches of British Isrealism lean heavily on Fenton's Bible to support their teachings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrar_Fenton_Bible

Single author translations are always problematic, though some, based on their author's credentials and scruples, are better than others. I wouldn't put any stock in Fenton's translation.

There are too many good translations out there.

 

[JFox1]

Thank you very much for the information. I agree. I wouldn't put any stock in Fenton's version. From what I've seen so far, he has some very strange renderings and he made arrogant claims that he's caught errors that all of the other translators down through the centuries didn't catch. I'm not buying that.

There are a lot better translations. My favorite is the Modern Language Bible. I also like the New American Standard Version and the Knox Version.