reek into our modern
languages--English, German, French, Swedish, or whatever the language of
the particular translation may be. Those who know anything of the matter
of translation know how difficult it is to render the exact meanings of
any statements or writing into another language. The rendering of a
_single word_ may sometimes mean, or rather may make a great difference
in the thought of the one giving the utterance. How much greater is this
liability when the thing thus rendered is twice removed from its
original source and form!

The original manuscripts had no punctuation and no verse divisions;
these were all arbitrarily supplied by the translators later on. It is
also a well-established fact on the part of leading Biblical scholars
that through the centuries there have been various interpolations in the
New Testament scriptures, both by way of omissions and additions.

Reference is made to these various facts in connection with the sayings
and the teachings of Jesus and the methods and the media through which
they have come down to us, to show how impossible it would be to base
Jesus' revelation or purpose upon any single utterance made or purported
to be made by him--to indicate, in other words, that to get at his real
message, his real teachings, and his real purpose, we must find the
binding thread if possible, the reiterated statement, the repeated
purpose that makes them throb with the living element.

Again, no intelligent understanding of Jesus' revelation or ministry can
be had without a knowledge of the conditions of the time, and of the
people to whom his revelation was made, among whom he lived and worked;
for his ministry had in connection with it both a time element and an
eternal element. There are two things that must be noted, the moral and
religious condition of the people; and, again, their economic and
political status.

The Jewish people had been preeminently a religious people. But a great
change had taken place. Religion was at its lowest ebb. Its spirit was
well-nigh dead, and in its place there had gradually come into being a
Pharisaic legalism--a religion of form, ceremony. An extensive system of
ecclesiastical tradition, ecclesiastical law and observances, which had
gradually robbed the people of all their former spirit of religion, had
been gradually built up by those in ecclesiastical authority.

The voice of that illustrious line of Hebrew prophets had ceased to
speak. It was