Campbell's New Testament

Alexander Campbell, ed., The Sacred Writing of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ, Commonly Styled The New Testament. Translated from the Original Greek, by George Campbell, James MacKnight, and Philip Doddridge, Doctors of the Church of Scotland. With Prefaces to the Historical and Epistolary Books; and an Appendix, Containing Critical Notes and Various Translations of Difficult Passages. Buffaloe, Virginia: Alexander Campbell, 1826. Second edition, 1828. Third edition, 1832. Reprinted often, most recently by Gospel Advocate Co. in 1974. Most printings bore the cover title, "The Living Oracles," and so the version came to be called by that name.

Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) was a leader of the Arminian "restoration movement" which gave rise to the Disciples of Christ and the Church of Christ. He produced this version of the New Testament for his early followers, before he had broken with the Baptists. As the title shows, it is not a new version, but a revision of versions of portions of the New Testament previously published by Scottish scholars. The Gospels are from a translation by George Campbell (Edinburgh, 1778), the Epistles from James MacKnight (London, 1795), and the Acts and Revelation from Philip Doddridge's New Testament (London, 1765). In 1818 a London publisher had reprinted these versions together in one volume, ¹ and it was this 1818 edition which Campbell slightly revised to produce his own edition in 1826. He is said to have spent less than a year in this work. Campbell himself was not so much a scholar as a controversialist. His preface exhibits the anti-Calvinism which came to be a hallmark of his movement, and in it he frankly avows that he was partly motivated by a desire to eliminate Calvinist interpretations embodied in the King James Version, which he characterizes as wilful mistranslations.

It is interesting to note that in his revision Campbell made eclectic use of the critical Greek text of Griesbach 1805.

Literature

• Cecil K. Thomas, Alexander Campbell and his New Version. St. Louis, Missouri: Bethany Press, 1958.
• Gary Holloway, "Alexander Campbell as a Publisher," in Restoration Quarterly. Volume 37/Number 1
• Frank Pack, "Alexander Campbell the Scholar," Restoration Quarterly 30 (1988) 149-50.
• James M. Seale, ed., Lectures in Honor of the Alexander Campbell Bicentennial, 1788-1988. Nashville, Tennessee: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1988.
• Jesse R. Kellems, Alexander Campbell and the Disciples. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930.
• Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell. 2 Volumes. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1868.

1. The New Testament Translated from the Original Greek, by G. Campbell, P. Doddridge and J. MacKnight. London: John Lepard, 1818. The volume sold well, and came to be known as "Lepard's Testament."