Bedell's Bible One Small Step to Better Bible Understanding

A SMALL YET SIGNIFICANT FORWARD STEP

Bedell's Bible did not receive worldwide acclaim. Still, it was one small yet significant step toward better Bible understanding, especially for people who spoke Irish-not only in Ireland buy also in Scotland and many other places.  they could now satisfy their spiritual  need as they read God's Word in their mother tongue. -Matthew 5:3, 6. 

Bedell's Bible has continued to help others of truth to do that right to modern times. One speaker of Irish, who in relatively recent times learned what the Bible really teaches, says: "When we read Bedell's Bible, we heard the words of the Bible in our mother tongue.  This was a crucial key that opened the way for me and my family to learn the wonderful truths found in the Scriptures." 

Bedell Remembered and Recognized

For nearly 300 years after the publication of Bedell's Bible in 1865, no other complete Bible  in Irish was published. Then, in 1981, Catholic scholars produced the Maynooth Bible,  a translation in modern Irish. In its foreword, the Maynooth Bible recognizes the "great achievement on the part of the church of Ireland when they published their version of the Bible in the 17th century."  That, of course, was Bedell's translation, although, in fact, until very recently the Catholic Church prohibited Catholics from reading the Bedell Bible.

The scholars who produced the Maynooth Bible published some of their preparatory work in 1 971. One part of this was the Pentatuc (Pentateuch), the first five books of the Bible, in recognition of the pioneering work that Bedell had done, those Catholic scholars included the note "in memory of William Bedell" inside its cover page. 

The Translators of the Pentatuc used the Irish term "lave" for God's name in many of the places where it appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, represented by the Tetragrammaton or YHWh. Examples can be found at Exodus 6:2-13. Sadly, when the complete Maynooth Bible was eventually published the editors-unlike Bedell-decided to remove the divine name completely from their translation and substitute "an Tiarna" (the Lord) in its place.  

Next time: Are You Disappointed in God?

From the Watchtower magazine, 2015