Farrar Fenton Translation

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After many years of searching, I have finally secured a (1966) copy of Farrar Fenton's "THE HOLY BIBLE IN MODERN ENGLISH". For those of you who have never heard of FF, a short section of the introduction to HBIME will follow. The work on the book took place from 1853 through 1903, and caused quite a stir when it first came out. Thought to be somewhat of a novelty by greek and hebrew scholars, it eventually faded away and never did gain mass popularity. Consider this comment:

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).

I am going to read through the version, and perhaps share some of the passages that made the translation such a oddity. Take for instance

Genesis 1:1
By periods God created that which produced the solar systems; then that which produced the earth.

And FFs footnote on the word "periods" (which is "beginning" in the KJV):

1. Literally "by headships." It is curious that all translations from the Septuagint have rendered this word in the singular, although it is plural in the Hebrew. So I rendered it accurately. -- F.F.

I hope some will enjoy.

 

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I scanned this page in. I hope the OCR worked ok. I removed all the errors I could find:

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE COMPLETE BIBLE IN MODERN ENGLISH

IN the year 1853 there was inspired into my mind, by what appeared a mere accident, a resolve to study the Bible absolutely in its original languages, to ascertain what its writers actually said and taught. I am now writing in 1903, just fifty years after, and have accomplished my object, and completed an entirely new translation of the whole of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures direct from the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek, in which they were first given to the world. I was in 1853 a young student in course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usually given for that purpose. I at once threw myself into the stream of the suggestion and registered a vow that I would never again read the Gospels, or Christian Documents of our Faith, in any language but Greek, until I had learned to think in that tongue and it had become as familiar to me as the diction of an English newspaper. I consequently abandoned my parental wish for me to take Orders, and ultimately turned to commerce. And in commerce my life has been passed, in transactions extending to all parts of the world and many nations. But not for one hour did I, or have I, abandoned my resolve as to Scriptural research. Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my know- ledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a  "peep-hole," as to make me totally unfit for the translation of so Universal a Code of the laws of Life as the Bible forms.
But, nevertheless, I never ceased to read in Philology, Scientific Writers, and Scientific Research, History, Sociology, Statesmanship, and every field which the Scriptures touch upon, to enable me to attain my object. The laws and writers upon Criticism, whether Orthodox, Heterodox, .. "Higher", " Broad," or "Lower," "Assyriologic," or "Sanskrit," have all been open to me, and my conclusion is tbat in the Hebro Christian Scriptures we have the only key that unlocks the Mystery of the Universe to the intellect of Man and the Mystery of Man to Himself. In this conviction I present this section of the Bible to my Race, not as a .. "Parson paid to preach it up "--- to use the vulgar phrase of modern men, whom Solomon would have called Fools-but as a man who began the investigation of the possibility of a Divine Revelation, as an absolute disbeliever in any such thing, and who after years of honest and independent research has become a profound believer in such a Revelation as the only solution of the Mystery of Existence, not only' of Man, but of all things....

 

 

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This is a full page scan. I use a 19 in monitor so it looks alright to me. Let me know if it is bad on smaller monitors and I will just scan the text next time. 
http://www.bereanonline.com/gen1.html

What is curious about this first chaper is Fenton's choice of words. It this really true to the Hebrew as he claims? He uses words like "solar systems" in verse 1 and "age" instead of "day" when speaking of the creative week.