Moffatt, New Translation

Moffatt, New Translation (MNT) is an abbreviation of the title "The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, a New Translation" by James Moffatt.

In the introduction to his 1926 edition, Moffatt wrote, "The aim I have endeavoured to keep before my mind in making this translation has been to present the books of the Old and the New Testament in effective, intelligible English. No translation of an ancient classic can be quite intelligible, it is true, unless the reader is sufficiently acquainted with its environment to understand some of its flying allusions and characteristic metaphors. But something may be done and I am convinced, ought to be done at the present day to offer the unlearned a transcript of the Biblical literature as it lies in the light thrown upon it by modern research. The Bible is not always what it seems to those who read it in the great prose of the English version or indeed, in any of the conventional versions. What it is may be partly suggested by a new rendering, such as the following pages present, that is, a fresh translation of the original, not a revision of any English version."

In beginning his work, in 1901 he arranged the New Testament into what he perceived to be historical order and provided an original translation of the New Testament entitled The Historical New Testament. Being the Literature of the New Testament Arranged in the Order of Its Literary Growth and According to the Dates of the Documents.

Moffatt's departed from traditional translations in several areas. First, he held to the documentary hypothesis and printed his Bible in different typefaces according to which author he believed had written each particular section. Second, he dated most books hundreds of years later than most theologians of the time; this stemmed from his doubt about the historical accuracy of many of the biblical books (especially those in the Old Testament). Last, he rearranged the biblical texts (usually by switching chapter orders) based on his judgments about the content, authorship, and historicity of the texts. For example, Book of John Chapter 14 comes after John 15 and 16 in the Moffatt Bible. These methods raised objections from many scholars but proved very popular and started a trend toward more paraphrased translations. It was one of the translations frequently used by Martin Luther King Jr..