Certain parts of the Bible appeal with unexpected force to
various races, and to men in different stages of civilization,
who read the Scriptures with other eyes than ours. We may
illustrate this point by a few actual examples.
When Dr. Kilgour was translating the Old Testament into Nepali
(India), he found it an arduous, not to say a tedious, task, to
render the long chapters of ritual regulations in Leviticus; he
was surprized, however, to discover that his Nepalese assistant
considered these chapters to be among the most interesting and
important in the whole Pentateuch.
So, again, the Chinese, who lay enormous stress on reverence for
ancestors, are profoundly imprest by the first chapter of St.
Matthew’s Gospel, because it begins with the genealogy of our
Lord, which, as a colporteur wrote last year, “goes back to our
Chinese Hsia dynasty.”
In Egypt, Moslems are attracted by the Book of Genesis, which
they call “the history of the creation of the world.” In the
south of Europe the Book of Proverbs is often purchased eagerly
by Freemasons, who look back to King Solomon as the legendary
founder of their craft.
In heathen countries it is by no means uncommon for the
missionaries, who are translating the Old Testament, first to
make a version of the Psalter and perhaps of Genesis, and then
to translate the Book of Jonah before attempting any other of
the prophets. They realize--what we sometimes forget--that Jonah
is the one thoroughly missionary book in the Old Testament, and
they find that its message comes home to their converts with
peculiar power.--_The Lutheran._
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