TRANSLATED BY THE REV. ISAAC SALKINSON: COMPLETED BY
DR. CHRISTIAN GINSBURG.
(Published by the Trinitarian Bible Society.)
The late Professor Bovet said, “The New Testament . . . of Isaac Salkinson is a book to be read with delight. If once you take it up you cannot leave it. In it one feels the Hebrew to be a living language, and no longer a dead one.”
THIS comment from a great Hebrew scholar explains better than any other words the reason why ever-increasing quantities of this Hebrew New Testament are being circulated by the Trinitarian Bible Society.
Leaflet issued by Trinitarian Bible Society.—Editor.
THE BOOK AND ITS STORY.
Isaac Salkinson was a Jew, and also a scholar. Moreover Isaac Salkinson was an Israelite indeed, for he was also a Christian. He was a complete master of the Hebrew tongue and had performed the difficult task of translating Milton’s “Paradise Lost” into the Hebrew language. But he had one great desire, a desire to give to his people a translation of the New Testament into Hebrew which should present to them in living phrases the New Covenant in the language of the Old—the lovely quality of the classic Hebrew of the Law and the Prophets.
Commencing in 1852, he spent thirty years upon this great task. This was no ordinary translation, no mere conveyance of the Scriptures from one language to another. Many men of learning had translated the New Testament into Hebrew. Their work was scholarly and good; but they were not Jews. His friend, Professor Delitzch, also had a commission to make a translation: but all these were different from the design of Isaac Salkinson. His translation was the work of an Israelite indeed, who wrote from his heart as one who had drunk deeply of the fountain of heavenly grace.
In 1882 the work was nearly finished, and Isaac Salkinson journeyed from Austria to England with his precious manuscript intent upon finding a publisher. But no one appeared to be willing to undertake the work until he was introduced to the Trinitarian Bible Society. Dr. Bullinger, the then secretary of the Society, himself a Hebrew scholar of no mean reputation, recognised the beauty and quality of this great work, and immediately undertook the task of publication.
The work was commenced and the first sheets were coming off the machines, when, tragedy of tragedies, Isaac Salkinson was taken suddenly ill and passed away. The man who had spent the best years of his life in this great work died before the books were printed, but, though he did not live to see his work completed, he, being dead, yet speaketh, for thousands of his fellow countrymen are thanking God for the sanctified labours of Isaac Salkinson.
Now arose the question, “What was to be done?” The answer came when Dr. Ginsburg, who was a warm friend of Isaac Salkinson, and an equally great master in Israel, laid aside his own literary labours for twelve months in order to finish the work of one whom he so highly esteemed.
The first edition, a token edition of 2,000 copies, was issued without revision as a memento to Isaac Salkinson. This was followed by a second edition which had been carefully corrected and proofed by Dr. Ginsburg, and this, with certain improvements made in recent years, is the New Testament which is in circulation to-day.
The second edition was to have been 10,000 copies, but a great opportunity arising for the circulation of the Hebrew New Testament in Russia through the Mildmay Mission to the Jews resulted in it becoming 110,000 copies instead of 10,000.
It is now some seventy years since this New Testament was first published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, and it may be asked, “What has happened in that period?” Very much indeed—so much, in fact, that the circulation of Isaac Salkinson’s Hebrew Testament has now reached figures far beyond anything he could have imagined.
In the early days the main circulation was in Russia, but when a National Home for the Jew was established in Palestine after the first world war, the desire to speak and read the language of his fathers became the great passion of every son of Israel. Schools were founded in which the Hebrew language was taught, and to-day, in Israel, Hebrew is fast becoming the common tongue.
About the time that the second world war broke upon the nations a certain Hebrew Christian in England felt that this desire to read the Hebrew language could be encouraged by issuing an edition of the New Testament with the Hebrew and English translations side by side. With the assistance of the Trinitarian Bible Society this was put into practical form, and a new Society sprang into existence, founded by Mr. J. Yoelson Taffen, for the purpose of circulating these special editions. Thousands of copies of these Hebrew-English New Testaments, which were published for the new Society by the Trinitarian Bible Society, were distributed throughout the world. This was followed by a New Testament in Hebrew and French, the Hebrew in every case being the Salkinson-Ginsburg matchless translation.
But further expansion was yet in store for the Hebrew New Testament. Israel became a nation with Hebrew as the mother tongue, and with the new-found nationhood interest in the book which enshrines Israel’s history became deeper and the demand more insistent. But it did not end with the Old Covenant. The younger generation began to read the New, and the beautiful Hebrew of Salkinson fascinated them, held them, and led them to ask, “Is Jesus really the Messiah?”
If only Isaac Salkinson could see to-day the result of his thirty years of labour he would rejoice indeed. If heaven rejoices over one sinner that repenteth, surely heaven will ring again and again as the people of Israel turn with renewed faith to Jehovah-Jesus, the anointed of God.
The Salkinson-Ginsburg New Testament is published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, 7 Bury Place, London, W.C.I. Secretary: Ralph F. Chambers.