THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE

- with the spread of Christian faith, TRANSLATION acquired the role of

disseminating the word of God!
a two-stage process:
a) translation of Christs mission into the Vulgate (Latin version of Bible)
b) translation into national languages

SAINT JEROME (formerly Saint Hierom)

- the Latin Vulgate was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 384 CE;
- he revised and corrected earlier Latin translations of the New Testament;
- by 390, for the Old Testament he turned to the Hebrew Bible, having previously
translated portions from the Septuagint (the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew
Bible)
CONTROVERSY!

SAINT JEROME De optimo genere interpretandi letter written in selfdefence and addressed to his friend, senator Pammachius (ca 395 CE), having
been accused of professional incompetence (in that he did not know how to
translate) or of criminal bad faith (in that he had refused to translate

properly)!

Now I not only admit but loudly proclaim that in translating from
the Greek, except for the Holy Scripture, where even the order of the
words (i.e. syntax) contains a mystery, I render not word-for-word but
sense-for-sense.

The document speaks of and links the two concepts:

- the translators duty
- literal translation
key statement of the translators dilemma:
if I translate word for word, the result sounds absurd; if of necessity I
change anything in the order or the manner of speaking, I will seem to
have fallen short of the duty of a translator.
as Jerome puts it, literal translation produces unacceptable results
which grate on the ear;
however, moving away from it, means abandoning ones post, or failing
to live up to ones responsibility!
in arguing against Literal translation, he confirms the general validity of
the rule!

This debate between literal vs. free and

form vs. content continued incessantly until
modern times!
the translation of the Bible became a weapon in
political and dogmatic conflicts!
in the early Middle Ages, the support of literalism is
eagerly taken up;
Saint Augustine, in On Christian Doctrine (397-426 ),
becomes aware of the potentially damaging differences
between existing Latin versions of Scripture and he
recommends using the most literal translations;
the word-for-word manner which Jerome reserved as
appropriate only for the Bible is subsequently adopted
for other discourses as well;

THE GENERAL VIEW: TRANSLATORS, as good Christians, should be

faithful translators (fidi interpretis) and should grant access to the
naked truth, stripped of all rhetorical embellishment and corruption, just
as the Biblical word itself is both plain and true!

BOETHIUS (Christian philosopher of the early 6th c.) = translating

Porphyrys Isagoge from Greek says:

in these writings in which knowledge of the matter is sought what
matters is not the charm of a sparkling style, but the uncorrupted truth
and this is achieved through sound and irreproachable translation.

Considerations like these appear to mark the dividing line

between the translator on one side and, on the other, the exegete,
as the provider of paraphrases, glosses, commentaries and
interpretations
RENNAISSANCE!
in the early medieval period, JOHN SCOTUS ERIUGENA is
criticized for the obscurity of one of his translations;
he counters with the observation that he was only the works
translator, not its expositor;
is an appeal to the notion of the faithful translator.

 JOHN WYCLIFFE the first translation of the complete Bible into English
(1380-1384), which advanced the theory of dominion by grace and the
community of the faithful = man was immediately responsible to God and Gods
law (the guidance of the Bible, not canon law!) = foreshadows REFORMATION

JOHN PURVEY revised the first edition before 1408;

- the second Wycliffite Bible contains a Prologue (1395-96) describing the
4 stages of the translation process:
a) a collaborative effort of collecting old Bibles and glosses to establish an
authentic Latin source;
b) a comparison of the versions;
c) counselling with old grammarians and old divines about hard words and
complex meanings;
d) translating as clearly as possible the sentence (meaning) with the
translation corrected by a group of collaborators.
First it is to knowe that the beste translating is out of Latyn into English to
translate aftir the sentence and not oneli aftir the wordis so that the sentence be
as opin (i.e. plain) either openere in English as in latyn and go not fer fro the
lettre;
to create an intelligible idiomatic version utilized and understood by the
layman;
150 copies of Purvey's revised Bible were written even after the prohibition
and translations circulated without the approval of the church;

 the widespread interest in the Wycliffite versions is underlined

by Knyghton the Chronicler who laments that the Gospel pearl is

cast forth, and trodden under the feet of swine.
[Henry Knighton (or Knyghton) (died c. 1396, in England) was an Augustinian canon at the
abbey of St. Mary of the Meadows, Leicester, England.]

in the 16th century Renaissance + the advent of printing + the rise of

Protestantism in Europe brought a new dimension to the history of
Bible translation;
the Bible was translated throughout Europe in both Roman Catholic
and Protestant versions;
1482 printed at Bologna - the Hebrew Pentateuch;
1488 the complete Hebrew Bible;
1516 the Greek New Testament published by Erasmus of Rotterdam; served
as basis for Martin Luthers German Bible;
1529/1550 translations of the New Testament in Danish;
1521-41 translation of the New Testament in Swedish;
1579-1593 publication of the Czech Bible;
translations and revised versions of existing translations continued to appear in
English, Dutch, German and French;

 worth mentioning are the translation of the sacred texts in Romanian;

1544 - Philippus Pictor (Filip the Moldavian) printed the Lutheran Catechism in
Sibiu, the first Romanian printed book;
1561-1581 Deacon Coresi printed 10 books, culminating with the Gospel (1581);
1643 Vaarlam, Metropolitan of Moldavia, translated and printed a Homily
and a number of hagiographic texts;
1648 Metropolitan Simion Stefan prints a translation of the New Testament;
the first Romanian scholar who in the Preface (Predoslovie) defines the
circulation of words by comparing them to coins:
Bine tim c cuvintele trebuie s fie ca banii, c banii aceia snt buni
carii mbl n toate rile; aea i cuvintele, acealea snt bune carele le
neleg toi.

1673 Metropolitan Dosoftei produced a Romanian translation of the Psalter in

Verse the first extensive poetical work in Romanian literature;
1688 the Bucharest Bible a Romanian translation performed by a team of
scholars, the brothers Radu and erban Greceanu who used Nicolae
Milescus translation;

 1525 WILLIAM TYNDALE New Testament;

the first translation from a Greek text instead of Latin;
the first English New Testament to be printed;
he was determined to make the boy that drives the plough in England know
more of Scripture than learned men or the Pope.
authorities in England denied his attempt to translate the NT;
he was forced to flee to the Continent where his NT was printed in 1525-1526;
his Bible was banned in England, smuggled copies were confiscated and burned
in public (1526);
translation was bold and free, good flowing English;
nonetheless, it was considered a heretical text because Tyndale abandoned
ecclesiastical terms like "church," "priest," "penance," "charity," etc., for
more common words such as, respectively, "congregation," "senior,"
"repentance," "love," etc;
he revised it in 1534 and again in 1535, but it is the 1534 edition that is
considered his best!
he also undertook to translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew text;
he was arrested in Antwerp, Belgium and imprisoned near Brussels;
he was strangled and burned at the stake at Vilvorde on October 6, 1536
his final words were: Lord, open the King of Englands eyes.

 Tyndales Bible was followed in quick succession by:

1535 the Coverdale Bible compiled by Myles Coverdale who

based his New Testament on Tyndales translation;

for the Old Testament, Coverdale used Tyndales published Pentateuch and
possibly his published Jonah;
Coverdale himself translated the remaining books of the Old Testament and the
Apocrypha;
not being a Hebrew or Greek scholar, he worked primarily from:
- German BiblesLuthers Bible;
- the Swiss-German versionthe Zrich Bible of Zwingli and Juda;
- Latin sources including the Vulgate.
1537 the Matthew Bible based on the Tyndale and the Coverdale Bibles and
approved by King, Henry VIII;
1539 The Great Bible designed specifically (great size) for placing in each
church in England for public reading;
1560 the Geneva Bible thorough revision of the Great Bible by a group of
worthy scholars working in the great Reformation center of learning, Geneva,
Switzerland;
The Geneva Bible received immediate acceptance and popularity and became
the household Bible of all English-speaking Protestants.
1568 the Bishops Bible not as good as the Geneva Bible;
they all paved the way for the Authorized King James Version (1604-1611).

 non-literal and non-accepted translations of the Bible = a

BLASPHEMY, but they became a weapon against the Church;

MARTIN LUTHERs translation into East Central German of the
New Testament (1522) and of the Old Testament (1534);
Luther played a pivotal role in the Reformation;
the use of a regional dialect in his translation
became the German
standard language;
Luthers defence against his detractors who accused him of altering the Holy
Scriptures = the Circular Letter on Translation / Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen
(1530);
Luther was heavily criticized by the Church for adding the word allein not
found in the original;
Arbitramus hominem justificari ex fide absque operibus (no equivalent word sola)
[We hold, that man is justified without the work of the law, only through faith.]
Wir halten, dass der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werk, allein durch
den Glauben.
CHARGE: the German version implies that the individuals belief is sufficient
for a good life, making the work of the law (religious law) redundant!
Luther replied by saying that in pure, clear German the word allein is used
only for emphasis!

 Luther stressed on:

a) the importance of the relationship between STYLE and MEANING;
b) the use of an accessible and aesthetically satisfying vernacular style.

a) Grammar is necessary for declension, conjugation and

construction of sentences, but in speech the meaning and subject
matter must be considered, not the grammar, for the grammar
shall not rule over the meaning.
b) extolling the language of the people he said:
You must ask the mother at home, the children in the street, the
ordinary man in the market and look at their mouths, how they
speak, and translate that way; then theyll understand and see
that youre speaking to them in German.
From that time on, thanks to Luthers translation, the language of
the ordinary German speaks clear and strong!

 in the 16th century, the translators task went beyond the

linguistic, and became evangelistic, for the (often anonymous)

translator of the Bible was a radical leader in the struggle for
further mans spiritual progress.
Erasmus in his Novum Instrumentum summed up the evangelizing
spirit of Bible translating when he declared:
I would desire that all women should reade the gospell and Paules
episteles and I wold to God they were translated in to the tonges of all
men so that they might not only be read and knowne of the scotes and
yrishmen But also of the Turkes and the Sarracenes. I wold to God
the plowman wold singe a texte of the scripture at his plow-beme. And
that the wever at his lowme with this wold drive away the tediousnes of
tyme. I wold the wayfaringeman with this pastyme wold expelle the
weriness of his iorney. And to be shorte I wold that all the
communication of the christen shuld be of the scripture for in a
manner such are we oure selves as our daylye tales are.