Background
Geddes was born on September 14, 1737 at Rathven, Banffshire, of Roman Catholic parentage.
(Excerpt from A Letter to the Right Reverend: The Lord Bis...)
Excerpt from A Letter to the Right Reverend: The Lord Bishop of London; Containing Queries, Doubt and Difficulties, Relative to a Vernacular Version of the Holy Scriptures; Being an Appendix to a Prospectus of a New Translation of the Bible, From a Corrected Text of the Originals, &C Even here they are not Confiftent. For if once they admitted the word Belial, they fhouldt have retained it throughout; and (aid a dying of Belial, a beam ofbelial, a witne/i qf Belial, tlie ?oods of Belial: which, however, they render an evil a wicked heart, an ungodly witnefi, tbe ?oods of ungodlmey}. Nay they have, once or twice, tranf. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(Excerpt from A New Translation of the Book of Psalms, Fro...)
Excerpt from A New Translation of the Book of Psalms, From the Original Hebrew: With Various Readings and Notes I now request my learned friends, and the learned in general, to favour me with their observations on this premature publication; that I may avail myself of them in my larger and last edition, which I wish to be as clear and correct as possible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Geddes was born on September 14, 1737 at Rathven, Banffshire, of Roman Catholic parentage.
He was trained at the Roman Catholic seminary at Scalan and at the Scottish College in Paris, where he studied biblical philology, school divinity and modern languages.
Before leaving Scotland he had received the honorary degree of LL. D.
from the university of Aberdeen.
After a second visit to Paris, which was employed by him in reading and making extracts from rare books and manuscripts, he was appointed in 1769 priest of Auchinhalrig and Preshome in his native county. The freedom with which he fraternized with his Protestant neighbours called forth the rebuke of his bishop (George Hay), and ultimately, for hunting and for occasionally attending the parish church of Cullen, where one of his friends was minister, he was deprived of his charge and forbidden the exercise of ecclesiastical functions within the diocese. This happened in 1779; and in 1780 he went with his friend Lord Traquair to London, where he spent the rest of his life. In London Geddes soon received an appointment in connexion with the chapel of the imperial ambassador, and was also helped by Lord Petre in his scheme for a new Catholic version of the Bible. In 1786, supported also by such scholars as Benjamin Kennicott and Robert Lowth, Geddes published a Prospectus of a new Translation of the Holy Bible, a considerable quarto volume, in which the defects of previous translations were fully pointed out, and the means indicated by which these might be removed. It was well received, and led to the publication in 1788 of Proposals for Printing, with a specimen, and in 1790 of a General Answer to Queries, Counsels and Criticisms. The first volume of the translation itself, which was entitled The Holy Bible . .. faithfully translated from corrected Texts of the Originals, with various Readings, explanatory Notes and critical Remarks, appeared in 1792, and was the signal for a storm of hostility on the part of both Catholics and Protestants. It was obvious enough—no small offence in the eyes of some—that as a critic Geddes had identified himself with C. F. Houbigant (1686-1783), Kennicott and J. D. Michaelis, but others did not hesitate to stigmatize him as the would-be “corrector of the Holy Ghost. ” Three of the vicars-apostolic almost immediately warned all the faithful against the “use and reception” of his translation, on the ostensible ground that it had not been examined and approved by due ecclesiastical authority; and by his own bishop (Douglas) he was in 1793 suspended from the exercise of his orders in the London district. The second volume of the translation, completing the historical books, published in 1797, found no more friendly reception; but this circumstance did not discourage him from giving forth in 1800 the volume of Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, which presented in a somewhat brusque manner the then novel and startling views of Eichhorn and his school on the primitive history and early records of mankind.
Geddes was engaged on a critical translation of the Psalms (published in 1807) when he was seized with an illness of which he died on the 26th of February 1802. Although under ecclesiastical censures, he had never swerved from a consistent profession of faith as a Catholic; and on his death-bed he duly received the last rites of his communion.
(Excerpt from A New Translation of the Book of Psalms, Fro...)
(Excerpt from A Letter to the Right Reverend: The Lord Bis...)
In 1800 he published Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures in which he largely anticipated the German school of Higher Criticism. The result of this publication was Geddes's suspension from all ecclesiastical functions.