Benjamin Wilson and The Emphatic Diaglott

Introduction

In August 1864 a printer and Bible teacher in the small town of Geneva, Illinois, signed the preface to a book he had been working on for about seven years. It was called The Emphatic Diaglott, and its preface promised "an approved Greek text, with the various Readings of the Vatican Manuscript, No. 1209", together with an interlinear English translation and a new version. Its author was Benjamin Wilson, an English emigrant from Halifax in Yorkshire. The book combined a Greek text, a word-for-word English translation printed beneath each line, and a new English version arranged in a parallel column with typographical signs of emphasis. It went through many printings and remained in use for well over a century. This article considers Wilson's life, the plan and method of the Diaglott, its reception, a number of its characteristic renderings, and its place in the history of the divine name in the English Greek Scriptures.¹

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From Halifax to the Illinois Frontier

Benjamin Wilson was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1817, into a Baptist family. Around 1840 he joined the movement associated with Alexander Campbell, often called the Campbellites, which sought to restore the beliefs and practices of the early Christian congregation.² Wilson and members of his family emigrated to the United States in the 1840s and settled in Geneva, Illinois, a village on the Fox River west of Chicago.³ The family histories of Geneva date Benjamin's arrival to 1842 and the rest of the family's to 1844, although British sources show that he was preaching at Harrogate in April 1843, so he may have returned to England for a time to help his family prepare for the move.⁴

In Geneva the Wilsons set up a job printing business and later published The Western Mercury, a newspaper for the village. A historian of the movement in which Wilson became a leader describes the Wilsons as "avid and skilled Bible students, especially Benjamin, who was trained in the biblical Greek language".⁵ Printing gave Wilson a trade, a press and the practical knowledge that would later make the elaborate typography of the Diaglott possible.

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A Leader Among the Age to Come Believers

Through the 1850s and 1860s Wilson became one of the leading figures in a loose network of congregations and Bible study groups across the American Midwest. These believers held that God's purpose centred on a coming kingdom on earth, a teaching known as the "Age to Come". They also rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and the belief that the soul is naturally immortal. Wilson edited and published the Gospel Banner and Millennial Advocate from Geneva between 1855 and 1869, and through it he exercised a strong influence over scattered groups in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and other states.⁶ One historian describes how frontier Bible students "began looking toward Geneva, Illinois and the growing power of the voice of Benjamin Wilson, eminent publisher, Bible scholar, translator and evangelist, as the leading authority on many of their questions". Wilson travelled to meet them, "teaching and preaching, staying in their homes and studying the Bible with them".⁷

For a time Wilson worked alongside John Thomas, an English-born physician who had also passed through the Campbellite movement before developing his own distinctive teachings. Thomas later founded the body known as the Christadelphians.⁸ At first Wilson and Thomas held similar beliefs, but they came to disagree, and their dispute is recorded in the correspondence published in the Gospel Banner. The historian of the movement observes that "most believers were put off by the tactics of Dr. Thomas when the friendship began to turn sour".⁹

The groups that looked to Wilson for leadership later formed part of the body now known as the Church of God General Conference, or Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith, which was formally organised in 1921. An account of that denomination's origins describes Wilson as "a key theological voice" and notes that in 1864 he published the Emphatic Diaglott.¹⁰ Wilson's nephew Thomas Wilson, who learned the printing trade under his uncle in Geneva, went on to publish the Herald of the Coming Kingdom from Chicago.¹¹

Late in the 1860s Wilson found himself at odds with younger leaders on questions concerning the resurrection and judgement. He rested his case on the Greek text, but he was unable to persuade them.¹² After a visit to England with his wife, he closed his business in Geneva and moved with his family to California in 1871.¹³ He died in Sacramento on 9 May 1900 at the age of 83.¹⁴

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A Work Issued in Parts

The Diaglott took shape slowly. Wilson stated in his preface that "the Work was begun about seven years ago with rather diffident feelings, yet with reliance on Divine aid, and has been prosecuted under discouraging and embarrassing circumstances".¹⁵ Like Frederick Parker's translation in England, it was first issued in parts. An advertisement in the Gospel Banner in January 1860 offered the instalments to subscribers at twenty cents each, or four dollars for the bound book. None of the original parts is known to survive.¹⁶ In his preface Wilson thanked "subscribers to the first edition, to whom it has been issued in parts, for their aid, and patience in waiting so long for its completion".¹⁷

Wilson himself produced the first bound edition in Geneva. According to the historian of the movement, it was probably completed and distributed to a few people in 1864, and the New York publishers Fowler and Wells issued the first formal edition in 1865.¹⁸ Library catalogues record the title with a copyright date of 1864, published in New York by Fowler and Wells, and an issue dated Geneva, Illinois, 1865.¹⁹ The preface is dated "Geneva, Ill., Aug., 1864" and signed "B. Wilson".²⁰ Fowler and Wells was well known to Wilson because it advertised regularly in his newspaper, the Western Mercury.²¹

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The Plan of the Work

Wilson described the features of the Diaglott in his preface:

"An approved Greek text, with the various Readings of the Vatican Manuscript, No. 1209; an Interlineary literal Word for Word English translation; a New Version, with the Signs of Emphasis; a copious selection of References; many appropriate, illustrative, and exegetical Foot-notes; and a valuable Alphabetical Appendix. This combination of important items cannot be found in any other book."²²

A page headed "Plan of the Work" explains the arrangement in more detail. The left-hand column contains the Greek text "according to Dr. J. J. Griesbach", with a literal word-for-word translation in which "the corresponding English is placed directly under each Greek word". Words that Griesbach accepted but that are omitted by the Vatican manuscript are enclosed in brackets. Wilson acknowledged that this part of the work was "more adapted for criticism than reading" and that "by adhering to the arrangement of the Original, the Translation may appear uncouth", but he believed that "the strength and beauty of many passages are thereby preserved".²³

The right-hand column contains a "New Version for general reading". Wilson explained that this rendering "is based upon that in the left hand Column, and the labors of many talented Critics and Translators of the Scriptures", and that "the Readings of the oldest Manuscripts now known are sometimes incorporated, and always referred to". The chapters and verses of the common version were retained "principally for convenience of reference", but readers were encouraged to follow the paragraphs rather than "these arbitrary divisions".²⁴ Footnotes at the bottom of the page give the readings of the Vatican manuscript, explanatory notes and references.

Wilson's purpose was not only scholarly. He hoped to put the Greek text within reach of readers who had never studied the language. "Those who have only a little or no knowledge of the Greek," he wrote, "may by careful reading, and a little attention to the Interlineary translation, soon become familiar with it." The work, he added, "places in the hands of the intelligent English reader the means of knowing and appropriating for his own benefit, with but little labor on his part, what it has cost others years of study and severe toil to acquire."²⁵ The volume included pages on the history of the Greek text, the history of English versions, and the letters and pronunciation of the Greek alphabet, for readers who wished "to obtain a rudimentary Knowledge of that language".²⁶

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The Greek Text and the Vatican Manuscript

Wilson chose as his Greek text the edition of Johann Jakob Griesbach, the German scholar whose critical editions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were among the first to depart significantly from the Textus Receptus.²⁷ To this he added the readings of the Vatican manuscript, Codex Vaticanus, the fourth-century codex in the Vatican Library that Wilson identified by its catalogue number, 1209.²⁸

In Wilson's day the text of Vaticanus was not fully available to scholars. The Vatican authorities had long restricted access, and reliable editions of the whole manuscript were only beginning to appear in the 1850s and 1860s. Wilson's decision to mark its readings throughout reflects the growing recognition of the manuscript's importance. Like Frederick Parker in England, he regarded the oldest witnesses as the best guide to what the writers of the Greek Scriptures had written. Wilson stated that biblical criticism had done much "by discovering many things which were unknown to the old translators, making great improvements in the text, detecting numerous interpolations and errors, and suggesting far better renderings of many passages".²⁹

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Wilson's Account of the English Bible

The Diaglott placed itself within the history of the English Bible. A page headed "History of English Versions" traces the line from John Wycliffe's translation, made from the Latin "about the year 1367", through the printed versions of the sixteenth century to the Authorized Version of 1611. Wilson's summaries are brief and sometimes pointed. Of the Matthew Bible he wrote that it "was only Tyndale and Coverdale's, published under the feigned name of Thomas Matthews". Of the Great Bible of 1539 he wrote that it was "named 'the Great Bible,' because of its large size". The Bishops' Bible of 1568 was "a revisal of the English Bible, made by the bishops, and compared with the originals", and the Douay Bible was "translated from the authentical Latin, or Vulgate".⁵⁸

Wilson's assessment of the King James Version was respectful but critical. He judged it "perhaps the best that could be made at the time", but added that "if it had not been published by kingly authority, it would not now be venerated by English and American protestants, as though it had come direct from God". He noted that nearly seven hundred Greek manuscripts were known in his day, "some of them very ancient", whereas the King James translators had depended on a small number of late manuscripts.⁵⁹ The page closes with a list of noted translations made since 1611, including Philip Doddridge's Family Expositor of 1755, George Campbell's Four Gospels of 1790 and James Macknight's translation of the apostolic letters.⁶⁰

The page addressed "To the Reader" sets out Wilson's view of the Scriptures. It opens with the words of 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture, divinely inspired, is profitable for Teaching, for Conviction, for Correction", and affirms the conviction that "the Word of God was perfect and infallible as it emanated from those holy men of old, the Prophets and Apostles, who 'spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit'". Wilson described the Scriptures as "a revelation of Jehovah's will to the human race".⁶¹ He then explained why the oldest manuscripts mattered: since the Authorized Version was made, manuscripts had been discovered, "some of which are very ancient", among them the one "marked B., Cod. Vaticanus".⁶² The argument linked his reverence for the inspired originals with his insistence on the best available text. If the Scriptures were perfect as first written, then the translator's task was to recover and render that text as faithfully as possible.

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The Case for a New Translation

The preface opens with a frank assessment of the Authorized or King James Version:

"It is generally admitted by all critics, that the Authorized or Common version of the Scriptures, absolutely needs revision. Obsolete words, uncouth phrases, bad grammar and punctuation, etc., all require alteration. But this is not all. There are errors of a more serious nature which need correction. The translators of the Common version were circumscribed and trammelled by royal mandate; they were required to retain certain old ecclesiastical words, which accordingly were left untranslated."³⁰

Wilson made no claim to superiority over other modern versions. "Without presuming to claim any superiority for this, as a translation of the New Testament, over any other modern version," he wrote, "it is thought that the present Work presents certain valuable features, not to be found elsewhere." He was also candid about its limitations: "It is not presumed that this Work is free from faults or errors. Infallibility is left for others to claim."³¹

He anticipated the objection that the work was the product of one man rather than a learned committee. "True, it cannot boast of being the production of a council of learned men, as King James' version, but let it be remembered that Tyndale alone, under very disadvantageous circumstances, did far more for the English Bible than that learned body, for they only followed in the wake of his labors."³²

Wilson's statement of principle is the most frequently quoted passage in the preface:

"Scrupulous fidelity has been maintained throughout this version in giving the true rendering of the original text into English; no regard whatever being paid to the prevailing doctrines or prejudices of sects, or the peculiar tenets of theologians. To the Divine authority of the original Scriptures alone has there been the most humble and unbiassed submission."³³

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Signs of Emphasis

The word "Emphatic" in the title refers to a feature that set the Diaglott apart from other translations. Wilson believed that the Greek article was often not simply the equivalent of the English "the" but a mark of emphasis. "The Greek article often finds its equivalent in the English definite article the," he wrote, "but in the majority of cases it is evidently only a mark of emphasis."³⁴ He also believed that emphatic pronouns and the position of words in a sentence conveyed shades of meaning that the King James Version did not reproduce.

Since this "peculiarity of the Greek language cannot be properly expressed in English except by the use of typographical signs", Wilson devised a system using initial capital letters, italics, small capitals and full capitals to mark different kinds and degrees of emphasis in the New Version.³⁵ He argued that the signs were "incorporated with the words in such a manner, that the latter cannot be stated without conveying at the same time to the intelligent mind an idea of the very intonation with which the sentence was spoken when it was written down".³⁶

The result is a distinctive page. A reader of the New Version encounters words in different typefaces throughout, signalling where Wilson believed the Greek placed weight. Whatever one makes of the theory, it reflects Wilson's attentiveness to the Greek article, a grammatical feature that also played a central part in Frederick Parker's work and in later discussions of passages such as John 1:1.

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The Divine Name in the Diaglott

Wilson did not adopt "Jehovah" as a general rendering of Kyrios, as Parker did. He did, however, use the name in the New Version in a number of places where the Greek Scriptures quote the Hebrew Scriptures and the original Hebrew contains the divine name. In the account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem at Matthew 21:9, the New Version reads "Blessed be he who comes in the Name of Jehovah", quoting Psalm 118:26. In Matthew 22:37, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, it reads "Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God", and at Matthew 23:39 it again reads "in the Name of Jehovah".³⁷

The same pattern appears in Mark and Luke. At Mark 11:9 the crowd cries "Blessed be he who comes in the Name of Jehovah!" At Mark 12:11, quoting Psalm 118:23, the New Version reads "this was performed by Jehovah, and it is wonderful in our Eyes". At Mark 12:29–30 Jesus quotes the Shema: "Hear, O Israel; Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with All thy Heart". At Mark 12:36, quoting Psalm 110:1, the New Version reads "Jehovah said to my Lord, Sit thou at my Right hand". Luke's account of the great commandment at Luke 10:27, the triumphal entry at Luke 19:38 and Jesus' reference to the burning bush at Luke 20:37 likewise use the name.³⁸

A footnote to Mark 12:36 explains Wilson's reasoning. It observes that in the original Hebrew of Psalm 110:1 the word is Jehovah, but that the Evangelist adopted the wording of the Septuagint, whose translators had not ventured to render the name directly.³⁹ Wilson's practice thus rested on the identification of quotations whose Hebrew source contains the divine name. His use of the name was more restrained than Parker's, but it was based on the same insight: that where the Greek Scriptures quote the Hebrew Scriptures, the Kyrios of the Greek text often stands for the name of God.

The New World Translation lists the Emphatic Diaglott among the English translations that use the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures, under the designation J21.⁴⁰ A researcher comparing Wilson's work with Parker's notes that both used "Jehovah" in the Greek Scriptures, "although Parker's use vastly outstrips that of Wilson".⁴¹

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The Logos and Other Renderings

The Diaglott is often cited for its interlinear rendering of John 1:1. In the New Version, Wilson rendered the verse: "In the Beginning was the LOGOS, and the LOGOS was with GOD, and the LOGOS was God."⁴² The use of capitals reflects his system of emphasis, with "GOD" in full capitals where the Greek has the article and "God" in the final clause where it does not. The word-for-word interlinear, following the order of the Greek, reads "and a god was the Word" for the last clause.⁴³ The rendering "a god" in this verse has a long history in English and had appeared earlier in the Unitarian Improved Version of 1808 and in Parker's English Version.⁴⁴

Wilson's decision to leave Logos untranslated in the New Version is itself significant. It reflects his view that the Greek term carried a meaning that no single English word could convey, and it allowed him to discuss its significance in a footnote rather than settle it in the text. The difference between the interlinear and the New Version illustrates the purpose of the dual format. The interlinear shows the reader the structure of the Greek, including the absence of the article before theos in the final clause, while the New Version offers Wilson's considered translation for continuous reading.

The Diaglott was valued by readers who did not accept the doctrine of the Trinity. A summary of the Church of God's origins states that Wilson's translation "rendered key passages to support the non-preexistence of Christ, portraying him as the begotten Son of God rather than eternally coexistent".⁴⁵ The historian of the movement records that it "was not popular with the orthodox churches because it literally translated passages which had formerly been translated by others to represent orthodox teachings such as the trinity, the pre-existence of Jesus, and Christians going to heaven".⁴⁶ Wilson himself insisted that "no regard whatever" had been paid to "the prevailing doctrines or prejudices of sects".⁴⁷

Other features of the New Version reflect Wilson's concern to translate rather than transliterate. In the closing words of the preface he committed the volume to God with the hope that its readers would gain a place "in the aionian kingdom of Jesus the Anointed one", using a transliteration of the Greek aionios and an English rendering of the title Christos.⁴⁸ His desire to avoid "old ecclesiastical words" that the King James translators "were required to retain" is evident throughout.⁴⁹

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Reception and Influence

The Diaglott was, in the words of the historian of Wilson's movement, "a resounding success". The same writer describes it as "revolutionary, and very helpful to Bible scholars", and notes that "the Age to Come people loved it" and that it had "widespread appeal".⁵⁰ Its interlinear format made it particularly useful for readers who wished to study the Greek text without formal training. Its parallel New Version allowed them to compare a literal rendering with a more readable one.

The work also reached beyond the circle of believers with whom Wilson was associated. A rare early edition has been found in the library of a Church of Christ in Grand Rapids, Michigan.⁵¹ Fowler and Wells, a commercial publisher in New York, kept the book in print, and it continued to be reprinted into the twentieth century. Its presence in the collections of the Internet Archive and of major research libraries testifies to its long circulation.⁵²

The Diaglott was not without critics. Its Greek text was Griesbach's rather than one of the newer critical editions, and its readings of Vaticanus depended on the imperfect information available before the manuscript was fully published. Its system of emphasis rested on a view of the Greek article that not all grammarians shared. Wilson acknowledged that the work was not free from faults, and he did not claim the authority of a committee. Yet the very features that drew criticism, a single translator, an interlinear method and a willingness to depart from traditional renderings, also explain its appeal to readers who wished to examine the text for themselves.

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Wilson and Parker

Wilson's work invites comparison with Frederick Parker's Literal Translation of 1863, published in London under the name Herman Heinfetter. Both translators gave great weight to the Vatican manuscript. Both works began as part-publications and became single-volume editions in the 1860s. Both translators rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, and both used "Jehovah" in the Greek Scriptures.⁵³ There is no evidence that the two men knew each other or knew of each other's work. Their similarities may reflect a shared familiarity with earlier translations, such as the Improved Version of 1808, and a shared conviction that the oldest Greek manuscripts should govern translation.⁵⁴

The differences are also instructive. Parker's work was published under a pseudonym and distributed privately, largely as gifts, while Wilson's was issued commercially and found a wide readership. Parker based his use of "Jehovah" on a grammatical rule concerning the Greek article, while Wilson confined the name largely to quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures. Parker's translation was an isolated achievement, while Wilson's was embedded in a religious movement that valued and used it.

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The Divine Name Study

For the study of the divine name in the Greek Scriptures, the Diaglott is significant for several reasons.

First, it shows a translator working from the Greek text who recognised that the Kyrios of certain quotations represented the divine name in the Hebrew original, and who rendered it accordingly. Wilson's footnote on Mark 12:36 makes the reasoning explicit: the Evangelist followed the Septuagint, but the Hebrew source of the quotation contains the name Jehovah.

Second, the Diaglott brought this practice to a wide readership. Parker's translation was rarely seen, but Wilson's was reprinted for generations and used by Bible students who did not read Greek. Readers of the Diaglott met the name Jehovah in the words of Jesus and the Gospel writers, in passages such as the Shema at Mark 12:29 and the quotation from Psalm 110 at Mark 12:36.

Third, the interlinear format allowed readers to see for themselves what the Greek text said. A reader could compare the Greek Kyrios with Wilson's rendering "Jehovah" and follow the reasoning in the footnotes. This transparency made the Diaglott a useful tool for those examining the question of how the writers of the Greek Scriptures used the divine name.

The New World Translation acknowledges the Diaglott in its list of English translations that use the divine name in the Christian Greek Scriptures.⁵⁵ Wilson's restrained but principled use of the name stands as an early example of the practice that later translators would adopt more extensively.

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Legacy

Benjamin Wilson spent his life as a printer, editor, preacher and translator. He left Halifax as a young man, helped to build a network of believers on the American frontier and produced a translation that outlived him by more than a century. His Emphatic Diaglott combined a Greek text, a literal interlinear translation and a readable English version in a single volume, at a time when such tools were rare and expensive.

Wilson's preface ends with the hope that the work, "principally designed for the instruction and advantage of others", would lead many readers to knowledge, faith and obedience.⁵⁶ The Diaglott remains available in digitised form on the Internet Archive, where readers can examine its Greek text, interlinear translation, New Version and notes.⁵⁷ It stands as a record of what one translator, working outside the universities and without the support of a committee, could achieve in making the text of the Greek Scriptures accessible to ordinary readers.

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Notes

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