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The New Welsh Bible​—An Improvement?

By Awake! correspondent in Britain

“The intention is, not that Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd [The New Welsh Bible] should supplant the William Morgan Bible [above] [Artwork​—(Welsh Bible text)], but that it should take its place alongside of its classical predecessor,” says the Bible Society. Who was William Morgan, and what can be said about the Welsh language and these Bible translations?

WALES, a delightful mountainous land of some 8,000 square miles [21,000 sq km] jutting westward from the English border, has two official languages, Welsh and English. Welsh, older than English, is an ancient tongue derived from the Celtic branch of the Indo-​European family of languages. Today, the country has a population of just under three million people, but only 1 in 4 is Welsh-speaking. However, only since the 16th century have they had the Bible in Welsh.

The Book That Saved a Language

The Welsh translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was completed by 1567. It was basically the work of two scholars, William Salesbury and Richard Davies, with Thomas Huet’s translation of the book of Revelation. William Morgan, a Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scholar, later revised their translations, adding his rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures. The complete Bible was finally printed in 1588, and by means of it, the goal ‘that every Welshman could draw the truth of the Scriptures from the fountain-​head in his own language’ was realized.​—Wales—​A History, by Wynford Vaughan-​Thomas.

Following the publication of the English King James Version in 1611, revisions were made by Morgan’s successor, Richard Parry, whose edition has been in use to the present time. But as The Bible in Wales puts it: “Parry’s Bible deprived the Welsh people of some of the advantages of Morgan’s scholarship.”

William Morgan’s translation was a remarkable achievement. He also proved to be a master of prose. Yet he had no model to follow, as scarcely anything, other than poetry, had been written in Welsh up to that time. His warm, dignified style and smoothness of phrase set a standard, in both prose and speech, for the Welsh people that has endured for 400 years. But it did more than that. “If ever one single book saved a language,” says Welsh historian Wynford Vaughan-​Thomas, “that book is the Bible in Welsh.”

Something Vital Not Saved

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Welsh Bible, a new translation appeared in 1988, the culmination of 25 years of work. What are some of its features, and how does it compare with William Morgan’s Bible?

Welsh, like any other language, has changed and matured over centuries of time. It is to be expected, therefore, that Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd should be written in “idiomatic Welsh, intelligible to readers in the late 20th century.” The hope that “this new modern translation will bring a fresh understanding of the Word of God and lead the people of Wales to a new awareness of its message” is a noble one. What can be said, however, of the claim that “the translators’ chief aim has been to communicate, as accurately and faithfully as possible, the meaning of the original texts”? How valid is that claim?

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the name of God appears in the form of the Tetragrammaton, יהוה, which in Welsh is translated as Jehofa, or Jehofah. When asked what policy Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd would follow in translating this Tetragrammaton, the translating committee replied: “Regarding Jehofah, this is an artificial name! . . . It [Jehofah] may sound noble, but it does not correspond to anything in the original Bible language . . . The word [Tetragrammaton] may be in the Bible over seven thousand times, but the Jews said (the) LORD every time.” So, apparently guided by Jewish tradition, they chose not to translate the personal name of God but to substitute ARGLWYDD (LORD) instead. Although the translators take exception to the use of Jehofah, in their “Preface to the Old Testament,” they acknowledge that there is another “traditional manner of translating the divine name . . . Yahweh.” Why, then, did they not at least use that?

The New English Bible in a footnote to Exodus 3:15 states: “The Hebrew consonants are YHWH, probably pronounced Yahweh, but traditionally read Jehovah.” In the modern New Jerusalem Bible, the Tetragrammaton is translated “Yahweh” because as its Editor’s Foreword admits: “To say ‘The Lord is God’ is surely a tautology [redundancy], as to say ‘Yahweh is God’ is not.” Yet, Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd takes this very course when it translates, for example, verse 3 of Psalm 100 as “Gwybyddwch mai’r ARGLWYDD sydd Dduw [“Know that the LORD is God”].”

Although Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd translating committee stated their policy that “the Divine Name in the Old Testament . . . will appear as LORD,” they are strangely inconsistent. At Exodus 17:15, their text reads “Jehofa-​Nissi” (“Jehovah Is My Signal [Pole],”) and at Barnwyr (Judges) 6:24, “Jehofa-shalom” (“Jehovah Is Peace”). Yet, for similar expressions employing the divine name, such as “Jehovah-jireh” (“Jehovah Will See to [It]; Jehovah Will Provide”) at Genesis 22:14, “ARGLWYDD” appears, without any explanation.

In contrast with these inconsistencies in Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd, Hebrew scholar William Morgan appreciated that the Tetragrammaton denotes personality. He used the name Jehofa, for example, at Exodus 6:2, 3 and Psalm 83:18. Interesting, too, is his use of the shortened form of the divine name, Jah, in his translation “Halelu-​Jah” (“Praise Jah, you people”) in the Christian Greek Scriptures at Gweledigaeth Ioan (Revelation) 19:1, 3, 4, and Re 19:6.

The Welsh Praise Jehovah

At the time of his death in 1604, William Morgan was still in debt from the printing of his new Bible translation, but his goal had been achieved. Thanks in great measure to his skill and loving labors, the Bible became a rich heritage for the religiously minded Welsh people.

Today, the good news of Jehovah God’s Kingdom is being proclaimed in Wales by some 6,500 of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who form over 80 congregations there. For people who have difficulty with the English language, some study aids published by the Watch Tower Society are also available in Welsh. So with the aid of whichever Bible translation is at hand, Jehovah’s name and purpose are being heralded and appreciated throughout the Principality of Wales by his loyal Witnesses.​—Isaiah 43:10-12.