A few months ago I subscribed to the Library of America, which collects the writings of important American authors and publishes them in well-edited hardcover editions. Last week I received the Library’s collected works of Benjamin Franklin but I hadn’t given it more than a cursory glance.
Today the professor referred to an essay by Franklin called “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” in which he demonstrated that the availability of good land in the colonies enabled men and women to marry at younger ages and therefore have more children. I picked up the Franklin volume again, but couldn’t find the essay unfortunately. I was eager to read it, since most scholars today support much of Franklin’s arguments and have supplemented his observations with birth records from the era.
I did, however, find a gem of a short letter that Franklin wrote to a printer and requested a new translation of the Bible. That alone is comic enough, but Mr. Franklin provided translations of a few verses from the first chapter of Job, in hopes that his translations could provide some sort of guideline for updating the Bible in modern language.
My favorites are Job 1:7 and 1:11:
“And God said to Satan, You have been some time absent; where were you? And Satan answered I have been at my country-seat, in different places visiting my friends.”
“Try him; – only withdraw your favor, turn him out of his places, and withhold his pensions, and you will soon find him in the opposition.”
The rest of it can be found here.
