Weymouth New Testament
The Weymouth New Testament ("WNT"), otherwise known as The New Testament in Modern Speech or The Modern Speech New Testament, is a translation into "modern" English as used in the nineteenth century from the text of The Resultant Greek Testament by Richard Francis Weymouth from the Greek idioms used in it. It was later edited and partly revised by Reverend Ernest Hampden-Cook in London, England. Publishers: Baker and Taylor Company (New York) in 1903 and James Clarke & Co (London) in 1903.
This edition is incorrectly referred to as the second edition of Weymouth's version, but it is really the first edition. Ernest Hampden-Cook, then Weymouth's secretary, edited Weymouth's manuscript in the following year of Weymouth's death in 1902 to produce this first edition in 1903. Weymouth produced the version as a literal translation of his own text in Greek (a.k.a. The Resultant Greek Testament). The Preface to the original by Weymouth (dated 1902) states that the version was chiefly designed to furnish a succinct and compressed running commentary (not doctrinal) to be used side by side with its elder compeers. [1] A second edition appeared in 1904; a third in 1909; a fourth, newly revised by several well-known New Testament scholars, in 1924; a fifth, newly revised by James Alexander Robertson in 1929, and then again reprinted in 1936.
Richard Francis Weymouth's popular translation of the New Testament into English was first published in 1903 and has been in print through numerous editions ever since with millions of copies sold. Weymouth's aim has been to discover how the inspired writers themselves would have expressed and described the events of the New Testament and Gospels, had they been actually writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, he has succeeded in rendering it into a dignified modern English edition without ecclesiastical nor doctrinal bias making it desirable to Christian readers of all denominations. The Resultant Greek Testament was prepared for final publication by Reverend Ernest Hampden-Cook (Weymouth's assistant associate) in 1903. The Resultant Greek Testament, by Richard Francis Weymouth, exhibited the text in which the majority of modern editors agreed, and contained readings of Stephens (1550), Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, Lightfoot, Ellicott, Alford, Weiss, The Bâle Edition (1880), Westcott and Hort, and the Revision Committee of London.
References
External links
- Editions of the Greek text of the bible (8)
- Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Gospel of John by Richard Francis Weymouth
- Works by or about Weymouth New Testament at Internet Archive
- Works by Weymouth New Testament at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
