Edgar Johnson Goodspeed: American Moffatt or American monkey?

The publication of The New Testament: An American Translation "did not happen in a corner" (Acts 26:26 AT). (1)

The translator, Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, had already established himself as a well-known scholar; the University of Chicago Press advertised the publication of the translation and entered into agreements for it to be serially published in various newspapers around the United States and Canada. (2) An editorialist for a major paper writer immediately took up the defense of the King James Version and castigated Goodspeed in a piece entitled "Monkeying with the Bible." (3) For other people, this translation came to be likened to the already well-known translation by James Moffat. (4)

Edgar Johnson Goodspeed: A Baptist and a Son of Baptists

The achievements of Goodspeed resulted from the convergence of a number of strands of influence that shaped, guided, and drove him. His paternal grandfather, Stephen Goodspeed, had married Jane Johnson, a Baptist, and they had five sons. Largely under her spiritual nurturing, two of the sons, Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed and Edgar Goodspeed, became Baptist preachers. (5) His maternal grandfather, James Ten Broeke, was from London but eventually migrated to New England and developed an interest in religion. Broeke became a Baptist, and before long, he had begun to preach the gospel and to teach school. He married Mollie Tappan, and they had several children. His strong academic interest resulted in the formation of a boarding school in their farmhouse. (6)

Goodspeed expressed pride in a distant Baptist connection on the part of his mother. He asserted that she "descended from the Thomas Olney who shared with Roger Williams the founding of Providence, Rhode Island, and in defining our great basic American principle of the separation of Church and State." (7) His mother, Mary Ellen Ten Broeke, had been born in the eastern United States but followed her sister and brother to the Chicago area and "naturally went to the nearest Baptist church." (8) She became the church organist and met and then married Thomas W. Goodspeed, pastor of North Baptist Church. They had two sons, Charles Ten Broeke Goodspeed and Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, the latter named for his father's brother, who was a capable preacher and pastor with an academic bent. Young Edgar stood in awe of his uncle, who, among other accomplishments, had written a book on the life of Christ. Years later, Goodspeed reported looking for his own author's card in the New York Public Library catalog but could not find one. Instead, he discovered that a number of his own books had been listed on his uncle's card. (9)

By the time Goodspeed was born, his uncle had become the pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Chicago. Because of the failing health of his brother, Thomas Goodspeed, Edgar's father, left his church in Quincy, Illinois, and accepted the call to become his brother's associate in the Chicago church. (10) Thomas, a well-educated man with great vision, understood money and how to raise large sums. (11) He played the key role in obtaining initial and ongoing funding from John D. Rockefeller for the establishment and maintenance of the University of Chicago, and he enlisted William Rainey Harper as the first president of the new university. (12)

Thomas Goodspeed and his wife were committed to providing their sons the best possible educational opportunities. For their son, Edgar, this included tutoring in Latin, preparatory classes at the Old University of Chicago, a B.A. from Denison University, and a B.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His education climaxed with a more than two-year academic pilgrimage to Europe and the Holy Land during which time he was an unpaid assistant professor. (13)

While clearly proud of the Baptist heritage of his family, Goodspeed did not simply bask in his family's Baptist tradition. Instead, it became part of his commitment and life engagement. He recalled becoming a member of Morgan Park Baptist Church when he was "eleven or twelve." (14) After his marriage to Elfleda Bond, they joined Hyde Park Baptist Church in order to be near the University of Chicago. There they organized a large Bible study group. Later, Goodspeed became a deacon. (15) As an expression of his sense of belonging, he asserted, "The church and especially the Baptist church has always been a second home to me." (16) After retiring to California, the Goodspeeds enjoyed a happy relationship with the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, and for two years, he was on the church radio program on Tuesday nights. He summed up his Baptist connection, describing their lives as always, "integrated with that of the local Baptist church, and ... thereby enriched." (17)

Brought Up Here and Thoroughly Educated

(Acts 22:7 AT)

By the time he was ten years old, young Goodspeed had studied Latin and, by the time he was fifteen, he had received an introduction to the study of New Testament Greek. Eventually, he and his brother, Charles, were sent off to Denison University in Granville, Ohio. (18) Goodspeed made the most of his language classes and considered himself a "confirmed classical student." (19) His first serious acquaintance with Greek began his sophomore year at Denison, and by the age of eighteen, "he had read the New Testament through in Greek ... in a most casual fashion." (20) In the fall of 1890, the recently graduated Goodspeed traveled east to New Haven, Connecticut, to study with William Rainey Harper, a family friend and recently elected president of the new University of Chicago.

Harper taught Semitic languages and put the young student to work learning Hebrew and Arabic and studying Old Testament legal literature. Goodspeed later recalled little difficulty with Hebrew, but he remembered his failure to shine in the Old Testament class. His major conclusion about learning Hebrew and Arabic at the same time was, "I do not know that anyone ever did." (21) Goodspeed also recalled that his poor performance resulted in his being summoned to a midnight meeting in the study of Harper at which he was admonished, "Edgar, I am in danger of losing my reputation as a teacher" because of you. (22)

The following academic year Goodspeed returned to Chicago. To earn money, he taught beginning Latin and Greek at two prep schools, the Morgan Park Academy and South Side Academy, that sprung up in anticipation of the opening of the University of Chicago. He considered this productive because he gained experience in teaching, and the constant drilling of the essentials greatly enhanced his knowledge and facility with both languages. (23) Goodspeed became so proficient at Latin that several years later while attempting to gain access to a manuscript in Spain, he was able to successfully negotiate the agreement in Latin. During the year back in Chicago, he also began to study Assyrian and Aramaic. (24)

When the University of Chicago re-opened its doors in October of 1890, Goodspeed began his study largely under the auspices of President Harper. Much of Goodspeed's attention continued to be given to the study of ancient languages, and he enjoyed the oversight of the president's brother, Robert Harper, and also studied with Rabbi Emil Hirsch. (25) The coming of Ernst D. Burton to the faculty resulted in this eager student shifting his attention to the New Testament. He and Burton began to collaborate on the publication of a harmony of the gospels, which they worked on together for years. (26)

The discovery and publication during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of stores of papyrus documents demonstrated that the New Testament was composed in the Greek of everyday life. No one championed the implications of that insight for translators of the New Testament more than Goodspeed. As a result, procuring, cataloging, and publishing ancient manuscripts and papyrus documents became one of his most significant and life-long contributions to learning and the university. (27) Two of his teachers gave him the opportunity to handle ancient manuscripts and papyrus materials, and he was launched on the "path to papyrology." (28)

The impact of these encounters with ancient materials influenced Goodspeed's research and teaching. He concluded, "There is nothing like fresh unpublished manuscript study to stimulate student interest in textual study." (29) He regularly arrived in his classes with a trove of unpublished materials for his students to analyze and decipher. (30) His experiences were so powerful that he concluded, "There is nothing our young American humanists cannot accomplish if only genuine research materials are placed before them." (31)

Goodspeed completed his Ph.D. in 1898, and President Harper offered him an assistantship at the university and urged him to take two years to study and travel in Europe. This opportunity provided him the occasion for conversations and meetings with a wide range of leading scholars across the field of biblical and archaeological disciplines. Goodspeed made friends and also created professional colleagues, resulting in later alliances for joint scholarly and publishing endeavors. (32) He returned to Chicago and received a promotion and launched his professional career.

Dean Shailer Mathews introduced Goodspeed to Elfleda Bond. Their relationship became a courtship and then a long marriage. Elfleda brought great energy and encouragement to Goodspeed's life and work. In addition to the numerous stories about her in his autobiography, he identified her in the dedication as the heroine of the story. Many of his other publications also are dedicated to her.

"A Bitter Physical Affliction"

(2 Cor. 12:7 AT)

Goodspeed's life included family, learning, and many positive and pleasant experiences, but he also experienced challenges. As a child he had had an attack of infantile paralysis that was treated but left him with a "twisted smile." Soon after his marriage, he discovered a problem with his eyes that he feared would cost him his sight. A second opinion offered hope but required three-months rest and then called for him, during the remainder of his life, to do all his reading and work by daylight. (33)

"I Passed on to You ... the Account I had Received"

(1 Cor. 15:3 AT)

At a meeting of the New Testament Club of the University of Chicago in February of 1920, Goodspeed presented a paper that pointed out the shortcomings of some popular modern-language translations. Two private translations, Weymouth and Moffatt, (34) and a group version, the Twentieth Century New Testament, (35) received strong criticism from Goodspeed for their failures. In a resultant discussion, S. J. Case, Goodspeed's colleague, suggested that he publish his own translation since he found the others so lacking. A representative of the University of Chicago Press overheard the discussion, pursued the idea, and soon Goodspeed had an official invitation. (36) Efleda thought well of the opportunity and encouraged him to undertake the project, and he was soon hard at work. For three years he pursued this "romance," maintaining a tight schedule to limit his reading activities to the daylight hours and to keep up with his other responsibilities at the university.

Goodspeed proceeded with a sense of confidence in the quality of his resources and his goals as a translator. The nineteenth century had witnessed the recovery of significant biblical papyrus and manuscript resources. He immersed himself in this scholarship and collaborated with E. DeWitt Burton on an English and a Greek Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels. (37) Goodspeed also intensified his efforts at obtaining and publishing other Greek manuscripts. (38) His assurance of the quality and antiquity of the ancient manuscripts as published persuaded him that "we actually know more exactly what Paul and the Evangelists wrote than has been possible in any century since the fourth." (39)

The latter part of the nineteenth century also witnessed something of an explosion in the recovery and publication of non-biblical Greek documents written on papyrus. These materials, created in the same era as the writing of the New Testament documents, represented ordinary literary expressions of everyday life. The publications of scholars such as J. H. Moulton (40) and Adolf Deissman (41) demonstrated the grammatical and lexical implications of these finds for interpreting and translating the New Testament. Investigation of these materials led Goodspeed and many others to conclude that the Greek New Testament was composed in the "common everyday language of its time." (42) Thus, he wrote, "The Greek of the New Testament is fundamentally the language of its day and this has put New Testament translation in a new day." (43)

Goodspeed further contended that the English spoken in America had created its own idiom and deserved a translation of the New Testament bearing its distinctive flavor. (44) He concluded that because of this evidence that the Greek New Testament was written in the common language of its time, "the most appropriate form of English is the straightforward English of everyday expression." (45) Thus, he opted not to use the more stilted second-person pronouns of the King James Version but instead favored the more vernacular American usage. For Goodspeed, it was a matter of numbers for "there are more readers of the English Bible in America than any other country." (46) In addition, he concluded that a translation for Americans "would ... appeal to that zest for progress so natural to the American mind." (47)

In contrast to other "private translations," Goodspeed strove to create a version for public use and reading. From its inception, The American Translation was "geared to public reading." (48) As a way of testing its oral quality, he read aloud sections of his translation for the university chapel services as well as at gatherings of his family. He held the opinion that translating for private reading only was inimical to the social character of the New testament text, "since every part of it so unmistakably addresses not the solitary Christian but the Christian public." (49)

Goodspeed's expertise in Greek grammar, lexicography, and history along with his familiarity with ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament and textual criticism emboldened him to forge ahead with his work. He knew that those skills, in themselves, did not automatically qualify him to offer to the public an English translation. To produce a widely and useful translation required attention to the quality of the English of the translation. His preparation prepared him for this new challenge. Throughout his career, he constantly engaged in publishing both scholarly and popular works. From 1917 to 1925, he averaged an article per year in the Atlantic Monthly. (50) To advance his goal, he used a modern form of paragraphing with chapter and verse numerals in the margin and included no footnotes. (51) He aimed to offer something of the power and vitality of the original Greek and thus invite "the continuous reading of a whole book at a time." (52)

In the final analysis, Goodspeed discovered that the most difficult issue was "to forget the old translations." (53) In order to speak in the American English of the early twentieth century, he had to resist the incursion into his thinking of what he had long studied and known.

"I am Writing ... What You Can Read and Understand"

(2 Cor. 1:13 AT)

In the late fall of 1923, after three and a half years of intense effort, The New Testament: An American Translation rolled off the University of Chicago Press. Predictably, the public response included both criticism and acclaim. Two factors, the premature release of portions of the new translation and some early editorials of a totally erroneous nature that were widely accepted as accurate, intensified the negative reactions. Goodspeed's account of the events suggests that he did not anticipate the immense public interest that his new translation would engender, but he felt that the news columnists had dealt with him and his work "fairly and informedly. The excitement was provided by the editorials." (54)

The negative responses to the American Translation received the greater share of attention, but from the beginning, strong endorsements and support also emerged. (55) Affirmations from many academic and denominational colleagues burst forth, but a broad range of ordinary readers also welcomed his translation from the outset. (56) In his assessment of the new translation, E F. Bruce published a letter he received from an Englishman who obtained a copy of the Goodspeed translation in Calcutta. The articulate letter writer gave the new translation precedence over that of Moffatt and prompted Bruce to conclude it was an evaluation "more valuable in its way than any critical review by a scholar." (57)

The most extensive and vitriolic criticisms came from those who felt the new translation posed a threat to the status of the King James Version. Goodspeed felt that many of the defenders of the version of 1611 did so because of they lacked an adequate understanding of its character and were unaware that the edition on which they depended had itself undergone extensive and numerous revisions. (58)

An August 24, 1923, editorial in the New York Times scored the American Translation for its lack of "the terse richness which has made the King James version one of the great masterpieces of English." As an example, the editorial cited Goodspeed's translation of Matthew 5:15, in which the new translation used "lamp" in place of "candle" and "peck-measure" in place of "bushel." The editorial writer described these usages as a "substitution of ugly new phrases for the rich old words" of the King James Version. (59) The writer apparently was unaware that the language of that edition of the King James had itself adopted the vocabulary of its own time.

Goodspeed was quick to respond and often pointed out what he considered glaring errors on the part of his detractors. He told of an editorialist who launched his own translation career, of sorts, by decrying the poor quality of the new translation in relation to the King James by asking, "How can anybody hope to improve on such a sentence as 'Blessed are the pure in spirit'?" (60) A great deal of mischief was created by those who took without question the views of a United Press release, whose author had obtained a pre-publication copy of the eleventh chapter of Luke. This writer read Goodspeed's translation of the prayer in Luke 11 and assumed that it was a shortened form of the prayer used in the worship of the church, and the writer then accused Goodspeed of abbreviating the Lord's Prayer. This misguided evaluation spread across the country and around the world. (61)

In a short time, the editors of the new translation felt certain enough of its success that they approached Goodspeed about a translation of the Old Testament. He did not feel qualified to complete such a translation, and the editorship was assigned to J. M. Powis Smith who, along with three other University of Chicago scholars, undertook the challenge. In due course, The Bible: An American Translation (62) was issued in 1931. Soon, Goodspeed noted what appeared to him as a major shortcoming of the standard translations of the apocrypha and set to work to correct the deficiency, and he soon published his own translation of the Apocrypha, (63) which was later published with The Bible in what Goodspeed would identify as "the first complete English Bible ever translated throughout from 'the original tongues.'" (64)

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the New Testament translation resulted in the publication of a special edition. At that time, Goodspeed's New Testament received the acclamation of "by far the best seller of the University of Chicago Press." (65)

As always Goodspeed felt bound to present the result of his scholarly efforts to the public, and launched onto the lecture circuit for more than a year. His approach was to play off the erroneous assumptions and views of his detractors. Eventually, his presentation included displays of editions of the King James Version so that the audience could see examples of revisions of that version of the Bible. (66)

Goodspeed's translation of the New Testament influenced many locales beyond the United States. Missionaries who were teaching English in India and China believed his translation could be a useful tool in their endeavors. Thus, arrangements were made for printing special editions to be used as an aid in teaching English in those areas. In addition, thousands of copies were distributed to the military. (67)

"To Spain"

(Rom. 15:24 AT)

After the publication of the American Standard Version in 1901, the revision committee had not disbanded but continued discussions about the need for further revisions. In 1930, the committee reorganized, and Goodspeed was appointed to fill a vacancy. (68) He had dreamed of "an authorized version, that is, one recognized as to be read in public" (69) that would incorporate the latest in textual, grammatical, and lexical insight. To that end, he entered enthusiastically and fully into the work that would result in the publication, beginning in 1946, of the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament. (70) Commenting on Goodspeed's work on the revision committee, MacGregor says he urged a "radical departure from the tradition of English Bible revision and the production of a more colloquial version." (71) While other Baptists also served on this committee, it is unlikely that any of them exercised more influence on the larger scene of Bible translation into English than Goodspeed.

Was Goodspeed a Moffatt, whose "new words will make the old truth bite deeper!"? (72) Or was he just "monkeying with the Bible"? The assessment of Bruce is appropriate here. "It has a dignity which commends itself to readers on this side of the Atlantic as much as to Americans." (73) If one set out to identify the person of the first half of the twentieth century who exerted the most influence on Bible translating in America, is there a name that would come before that of Edgar Johnson Goodspeed?

(1.) Edgar J. Goodspeed, The New Testament: An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923). Hereafter also designated AT.

(2.) Edgar J. Goodspeed, As I Remember (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), 179.

(3.) Chicago Daily Tribune, August 27, 1923, in the Edgar Johnson Goodspeed Collection, Special Collections, University of Chicago, Box 42, Folder 3.

(4.) F. F. Bruce, History of the English Bible: From the Earliest Versions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 172.

(5.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 18.

(6.) Ibid., 18-19.

(7.) Ibid., 39, 275. For more on Thomas Olney, see H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 36.

(8.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 15.

(9.) Ibid., 18.

(10.) Ibid., 37. Years earlier, Second Baptist Church had split away from First Baptist Church because of differences over the abolition of slavery.

(11.) William H. Brackney, "Goodspeed, Thomas Wakefield (1842-1927)" in Historical Dictionary of Baptists (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999), 191-92.

(12.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 12-13, 44, 78-91; James Harrel Cobb and Louis B. Jennings, A Biography & Bibliography of Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 1.

(13.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 95, 106-15.

(14.) Ibid., 38.

(15.) Ibid., 39.

(16.) Ibid., 37.

(17.) Ibid., 46, 291.

(18.) Ibid., 31-33, 49.

(19.) Ibid. 50.

(20.) Ibid. 160-61.

(21.) Ibid. 56.

(22.) Ibid. 55.

(23.) Ibid. 59, 78-81.

(24.) Ibid. 137.

(25.) Ibid. 87-88.

(26.) Ibid. 92.

(27.) The University of Chicago's collection of New Testament manuscripts was named in honor of E. J. Goodspeed in 1948. For a listing, see www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/goodspeed.html, accessed April 10, 2007.

(28.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 98.

(29.) bid., 96, 98.

(30.) "Early Manuscript Studies at the University of Chicago, 1869-1927," www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/ goodspeed.html, accessed April 10, 2007.

(31.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 251.

(32.) Ibid., 106-15. See also Cobb and Jennings, Biography, 1-2.

(33.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 16, 123-124.

(34.) Richard Francis Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech (1903); James Moffatt, The New Testament: A New Translation (1913).

(35.) The Twentieth Century New Testament: A Translation into Modern English Made from the Original Greek (1902).

(36.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 156-57.

(37.) A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels for Historical and Critical Study (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917); A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels in Greek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1920).

(38.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 217-52

(39.) Edgar J. Goodspeed, "The Ghost of King James," Atlantic Monthly 133 (1924): 71.

(40.) Introduction to New Testament Greek (1895).

(41.) Bibelstudien (1895).

(42.) Edgar J. Goodspeed, "Preface," The New Testament: An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), v.

(43.) Edgar J. Goodspeed, Problems of New Testament Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945).

(44.) R. Bryan Bademan, "'Monkeying with the Bible': Edgar J. Goodspeed's American Translation," Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 16, no. 1 (2006): 81n. Bademan offers evidence that by the time of Goodspeed's translation there is a basis for recognizing a "self-consciously 'American' idiom of English."

(45.) Goodspeed, "Preface," v.

(46.) Ibid., 158.

(47.) Goodspeed, "The Ghost of King James," 72.

(48.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 158. He recalls an incident when he was responsible to read the scripture lesson prior to a sermon by Moffatt. When asked if the text should be read from the Moffatt translation, the response from Moffatt was, "Oh no! I never read from my translation in church." Goodspeed pointed out that while Moffatt did not, many others did.

(49.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 160.

(50.) Cobb and Jennings, 19-25. Later, Goodspeed would publish a book-length mystery. The Curse in the Colophon (Chicago: Willett, Clark and Co, 1935).

(51.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 159.

(52.) Ibid., 162.

(53.) Ibid.

(54.) Ibid., 166.

(55.) Ibid., 164-68. Some were more in the nature of a news article and were generally neutral in their treatment of the translation. See "Gives New Testament in Current Language," New York Times (August 24, 1923): 4, accessed March 6, 2007.

(56.) Goodspeed, "The Ghost of King James," 72.

(57.) Bruce, History of the English Bible, 173

(58.) Bademan, "Monkeying." This recent article makes a strong case that much of the embracing of the King James Version and rejection of Goodspeed's work was due to a culture wide belief the language of the 1611 version embodied and expressed American national identity.

(59.) "The Bible A La Chicago," New York Times (August 27, 1923): 10, accessed March 6, 2007.

(60.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 174.

(61.) Ibid., 166.

(62.) Edgar J. Goodspeed and 3. M. Powis Smith, The Bible: An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931).

(63.) Edgar J. Goodspeed, The Apocrypha: An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938).

(64.) Edgar J. Goodspeed and J. M. Powis Smith, The Complete Bible: An American Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939).

(65.) Cobb and Jennings, Biography, 3.

(66.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 191-216.

(67.) Ibid., 184-86.

(68.) Luther Weigle, An Introduction to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament (n.p.: International Council of Religious Education, 1946), 5-8.

(69.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 156.

(70.) Ibid., 66-75. The New Testament committee met at his island cabin during the summers of 1938 and 1939 to do more intensive work than otherwise was possible. In this section, he also told interesting stories about James Moffatt and Henry Cadbury.

(71.) Geddes MacGregor, A Literary History of the Bible: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968), 332.

(72.) Goodspeed, As I Remember, 158. A question suggested by Goodspeed's quotation of a statement by Bishop Williams about the character of Moffatt's translation.

(73.) Bruce, History of the English Bible, 172.

Robert O. Byrd is H. F. Paschall Chair of Biblical Studies and Preaching, School of Religion at Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.