Bible Translations

From Joey Day : Documentation

The efforts of translating the Bible from the original languages it was written in has spanned for over two millennia. The following paragraphs describe the history of these efforts, focusing on the translation of the Bible into English. The majority of this text has been taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Early translations

Jewish translations

The first movement to translate books of the Bible appeared in the 3rd century BC. Most of the Old Testament then existed in Hebrew, but the Jews had scattered widely. Many had gathered in Egypt where Alexander the Great had founded the city that bears his name. At one time a third of the population of the city was Jewish. Many of the people were passionately loyal to their religion and its sacred book, but the current tongue there and throughout most of the Mediterranean region was Greek, and not Hebrew. Though there were some who felt that the Book and its original language were inseparable, others set out to make the Book speak the current tongue. These people worked one hundred and fifty years to complete what we call the Septuagint.

While there is accumulating evidence that there was spoken in Judea at that time a colloquial Greek, with which most people would be familiar, it is yet probable that Jesus spoke neither Greek nor Hebrew, but Aramaic. He knew the Hebrew Bible, but most of his words have come down to us in translation. We have his words as they were translated by his disciples into the Greek, in which the New Testament was originally written.

Early Christian translations

By the time the writing of the New Testament was completed in the 2nd century AD, while Greek was still current speech, the Roman Empire was so dominant that the common people were talking Latin almost as much as Greek, and gradually, because political power was behind it, the Latin gained on the Greek, and became virtually the speech of the common people. The movement to make the Bible talk the language of the time appeared again. It is impossible to say now when the first translations into Latin were made. Certainly there were some within two centuries after Jesus, and by 250 AD a whole Bible in Latin was in circulation in the Roman Empire. The original writing of what constitutes today New Testament were most likely written in Greek, and so were the common translations of the Old Testament, the Latin versions of the Old Testament were, therefore, translations (Greek to Latin) of a translation (Hebrew to Greek). These translations generally came to be known as the Vetus Latina.

Jerome's Bible

There were so many of these versions, and they were so unequal in value, that there was natural demand for a Latin translation that should be authoritative. So came into being what we call the Vulgate, whose very name indicates the desire to get the Bible into the vulgar or common tongue. Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back of all translations to the original Greek, and back of the Septuagint to the original Hebrew wherever he could do so. Fourteen years he labored, settling himself in Bethlehem, in Palestine, to do his work the better. In 404 AD his Latin version appeared. It met a storm of protest for its effort to go back of the Septuagint, so dominant had the translation become. Jerome fought for it, and his version won the day, and became the authoritative Latin translation of the Bible.

Old English translations

Main article: Old English Bible translations

Although John Wycliff is often credited with the first translation of the Bible into English, there were, in fact, many translations of large parts of the Bible centuries before Wycliff's work. Toward the end of the Seventh Century, the Venerable Bede began a translation of Scripture into Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon). Aldhelm (640-709 AD) likewise translated the complete Book of Psalms and large portions of other scriptures into Old English. In the 11th Century, Abbot Ælfric translated much of the Old Testament into Old English.

For seven or eight centuries, it was the the Latin Vulgate that held its sway as the common version nearest to the tongue of the people. Latin had become the accepted tongue of the Catholic Church and there was little general acquaintance with the Bible except among the educated. During all that time there was no real room for a further translation. Medieval England was quite unripe for a Bible in the mother tongue; while the illiterate majority were in no condition to feel the want of such a book, the educated minority would be averse to so great and revolutionary a change. When a man cannot read any writing it really does not matter to him whether books are in current speech or not, and the majority of the people for those seven or eight centuries could read nothing at all.

These centuries added to the (unfounded) conviction of many that the Bible ought not to become too common, that it should not be read by everybody, that it required a certain amount of learning to make it safe reading. They came to feel that it is as important to have an authoritative interpretation of the Bible as to have the Bible itself. When the movement began to make it speak the new English tongue, it provoked the most violent opposition. Latin had been good enough for a millennium; why cheapen the Bible by a translation? There had grown up a feeling that Jerome himself had been inspired. He had been canonized, and half the references to him in that time speak of him as the inspired translator.

Criticism of his version was counted as impious and profane as criticisms of the original text could possibly have been. It is one of the ironies of history that the version for which Jerome had to fight, and which was counted a piece of impiety itself, actually became the ground on which men stood when they fought against another version, counting anything else but this very version an impious intrusion.

How early the movement for an English Bible began, it is impossible now to say. Yet the fact is that until the last quarter of the fourteenth century there was no complete prose version of the Bible in the English language. However, there were vernacular translations of parts of the Bible in England prior to in both Anglo Saxon and Norman French.

Middle English translations

Main article: Middle English Bible translations

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, the English language underwent rapid change, evolving into the Middle English best known in the works of Chaucer. The earliest Middle English translation was probably that of Richard Rolle, who translated portions of the New Testament.

John Wycliffe

To John Wycliffe belongs the honor of organizing the first complete translation of the Bible into Middle English in the 1380s. The translation was a collaborative effort, and it is not clear which portions are actually Wycliffe's work. Church authorities officially condemned the translators of the Bible into vernacular languages and called these heretics Lollards. Despite their prohibition, revised versions of Wycliffite Bibles remained in use for about 100 years.

Impact of humanist scholarship

In the century just after Wycliffe's translation, two great events occurred which bore heavily on the spread of the Bible. One was the revival of learning, which made popular again the study of the classics and the classical languages. Critical and exact Greek scholarship became again a possibility. Under the influence of Erasmus and his kind, with their new insistence on classical learning, there came necessarily a new appraisal of the Vulgate as a translation of the original Bible. For a thousand years there had been no new study of the original Bible languages in Europe. The Latin of the Vulgate had become as sacred as the Book itself. But the revival of learning threw scholarship back on the sources of the text. Erasmus and others published versions of the Greek Testament which disturbed the Vulgate's position as a final version.

The other great event of that same century was the invention of printing with movable type. It was in 1455 that Johannes Gutenberg printed his first book, an edition of the Vulgate, now called the Mazarin Bible. One can see instantly how printing affected the use of the Bible. It made it worth while to learn to read—there would be something to read. It made it worth while to write—there would be some one to read what was written.

William Tyndale

William Tyndale (b. 1484) a priest who graduated at Oxford, was a student in Cambridge when Martin Luther posted his theses at Wittenburg and was troubled by the problems within the Church. In 1523, taking advantage of the new invention of the printing machine Tyndale began to cast the Scriptures into the current English. However, Tyndale did not have copies of "original" Hebrew texts. In fact the quality of the Hebrew documents was poor, since no original Hebrew sources earlier than the 10th Century had survived. He set out to London fully expecting to find support and encouragement there, but he found neither. He found, as he once said, that there was no room in the palace of the Bishop of London to translate the New Testament; indeed, that there was no place to do it in all England. A wealthy London merchant subsidized him with the munificent gift of ten pounds, with which he went across the Channel to Hamburg; and there and elsewhere on the Continent, where he could be hid, he brought his translation to completion. Printing facilities were greater on the Continent than in England; but there was such opposition to his work that very few copies of the several editions of which we know can still be found. Tyndale was compelled to flee at one time with a few printed sheets and complete his work on another press. Several times copies of his books were solemnly burned, and his own life was frequently in danger.

The Church had objected to Tyndale's translations because in their belief purposeful mistranslations had been introduced to the works in order to promote anticlericalism and heretical views (same argument they used against Wycliff's translation). Thomas More accused Tyndale of evil purpose in corrupting and changing the words and sense of Scripture. Specifically, he charged Tyndale with mischief in changing three key words throughout the whole of his Testament, such that "priest", "church", and "charity" of customary Roman Catholic usage became in Tyndale's translation "elder", "congregation" and "love". The Church also objected to Wycliffe and Tyndale's translations because they included notes and commentaries promoting antagonism to the Catholic Church and heretical doctrines, particularly, in Tyndale's case, Lutheranism.

There is one story which tells how money came to free Tindale from heavy debt and prepare the way for more Bibles. The Bishop of London, Tunstall, was set on destroying copies of the English New Testament. He therefore made a bargain with a merchant of Antwerp, to secure them for him. The merchant was a friend of Tindale, and went to him to tell him he had a customer for his Bibles, The Bishop of London. Tyndale agreed to give the merchant the Bibles to pay-off his debt and finance new editions of the Bible.

The final revision of the Tyndale translations was published in 1534, and that becomes the notable year of his life. In two years he was put to death by strangling in the Netherlands for the unrelated charges of teaching Lutheranism, and his body was burned. However, Tyndale may be considered the father of the King James Version (KJV) since much of his work was transferred to the KJV. The revisers of 1881 declared that while the KJV was the work of many hands, the foundation of it was laid by Tyndale, and that the versions that followed it were substantially reproductions of Tyndale's, or revisions of versions which were themselves almost entirely based on it.

The first "authorised version"

There appeared what is known as the Great Bible in 1539. It was made by Myles Coverdale, and much influenced by Tyndale. The Great Bible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available in some convenient place the largest possible copy of the whole Bible, where all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their will. The version gets its name solely from the size of the volume. That decree dates 1538, twelve years after Tyndale's books were burned, and two years after he was burned. The installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement as crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner caused six copies of the great volume to be located wisely throughout St. Paul's. He found it difficult to make people leave them during the sermons. He was so often interrupted by voices reading to a group, and by the discussions that ensued, that he threatened to have them taken out during the service if people would not be quiet. The Great Bible appeared in seven editions in two years, and continued in recognized power for thirty years. Much of the present English prayer-book is taken from it.

But this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it. Henry became vexed because the sacred words "were disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house." There had grown up a series of wild ballads and ribald songs in contempt of "the old faith," while it was not really the old faith which was in dispute, but only foreign control of English faith. They had mistaken Henry's meaning. So Henry began to put restrictions on the use of the Bible. There were to be no notes or annotations in any versions, and those that existed were to be blacked out. Only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a Bible. Finally, the year before his death, all versions were prohibited except the Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded secret use. The decree led to another great burning of Bibles in 1546 — Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew—all but the Great Bible. The leading religious reformers took flight and fled to European Protestant towns like Frankfurt and Strassburg.

Under Edward VI, the regency cast off all restrictions on translation and publication of the Bible. The order for a Great Bible in every church was renewed, and there was to be added to it a copy of Erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels. Nearly fifty editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years.

The Geneva Bible

Then came Queen Mary who again gave in the nominal allegiance of England to the Roman control. But she missed the spirit of the people, who she thought were weary with the excesses of rabid Protestantism; but they were by no means ready to admit the principle of foreign control in religious matters. So the secret use of protestant translations of the Bible continued, despite official efforts to restore England to Catholic unity.

English Protestant scholarship was driven into exile, and found its way to Frankfurt and Geneva again. There the spirit of scholarship was untrammeled; there they found material for scholarly study of the Bible, and there they made and published a new version of the Bible in English, by all means the best that had been made. In later years, under Elizabeth, it drove the Great Bible off the field by sheer power of excellence. During her reign sixty editions of it appeared. This was the version called the Geneva Bible. It made several changes: for one, in the Genevan edition of 1560 first appeared the familiar division into verses. The chapter division was made three centuries earlier, but the verses belong to the Genevan version, and are meant to make the book suitable for responsive use and for readier reference. They were taken in large part from the work of Robert Stephens, who had divided the Greek Testament into verses ten years earlier, during a journey which he was compelled to make between Paris and Lyons. The Genevan version also abandoned the old black letter, and used the Roman type with which we are familiar. It had full notes on hard passages, which notes helped to produce the King James version. The work itself was completed after the accession of Elizabeth, when most of the religious leaders had returned to England from their exile under Mary.

The Bishops' Bible

At the time of Elizabeth I of England it was found that two versions of the Bible were in common use, the old Great Bible and the new Geneva Bible. Yet there could be no hope of gaining the approval of Elizabeth for the Geneva Bible. For one thing, John Knox had been a party to its preparation; so had Calvin. Elizabeth detested them both, especially Knox. For another thing, its notes were not favorable to royal sovereignty, but smacked so much of popular government as to be offensive. For another thing, it had been made in a foreign land, and was under suspicion on that account.

The result was that Elizabeth's archbishop, Parker, set out to have an authorized version made, selected a revision committee, with instructions to follow wherever possible the Great Bible, to avoid bitter notes, and to make such a version that it might be freely, easily, and naturally read. The result is known as the Bishops' Bible. It was issued in Elizabeth's tenth year (1568), but there is no record that she ever noticed it, though Parker sent her a copy from his sick-bed. The Bishops' Bible shows influence of the Geneva Bible in many ways, though it gives no credit for that. Only its official standing gave it life, and after forty years, in nineteen editions, it was no longer published.

The Douai-Rheims Version

The Douai version was the work of English scholars connected with the University of Douai. The New Testament was issued at Rheims in 1582, and the whole Bible in 1609, just before the King James version. It is made, not from the Hebrew and the Greek, though it refers to both, but from the Vulgate. The result is that the Old Testament of the Douai version is a translation into English from the Latin, which in large part is a translation into Latin from the Greek Septuagint, which in turn is a translation into Greek from the Hebrew. Yet scholars are scholars, and it shows marked influence of the Genevan version, and, indeed, of other English versions. Its notes were strongly anti-Protestant, and in its preface it explains its existence by saying that Protestants have been guilty of "casting the holy to dogs and pearls to hogs."

The version is not in the direct line of the ascent of the familiar version—its English was not colloquial, but ecclesiastical. For example, in the Lord's Prayer we read: "Give us this day our supersubstantial bread," instead of "our daily bread." In Hebrews 13:17, the version reads, "Obey your prelates and be subject unto them." In Luke 2:3, John came "preaching the baptism of penance." In Psalm xxiii:5, where we read, "My cup runneth over," the Douai version reads, "My chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly it is." There is a retention of ecclesiastical terms, and an explanation of the passages on which Protestants had come to differ rather sharply from Catholics, as in the matter of the taking of the cup by the people, and elsewhere.

The King James Version

Main article: King James Version of the Bible

The King James Version (KJV) was commissioned for the benefit of the Church of England at the behest of King James I of England. First published in 1611, it has had a profound impact not only on most English translations that have followed it, but also on English literature as a whole. The works of famous authors such as John Bunyan, John Milton, Herman Melville, John Dryden, and William Wordsworth are replete with inspiration apparently derived from the King James Version. The King James Version has deeply influenced Bibles such as the English Revised Version, New American Standard Bible, and Revised Standard Version. The only Bible which can legitimately be called a "revision" is the New King James Version since it is based on the same Greek texts--the Textus Receptus.

Though often referred to as the Authorised Version (AV), it was never officially sanctioned by the English monarchy or the clerical hierarchy of the Church of England. It is no longer in copyright in most parts of the world but is under perpetual Crown copyright in the United Kingdom. The King James Version, despite its age, is largely comprehensible to the average reader today. It is considered to be an instrumental founding block of Early Modern English, and remains one of the most widely-read literary works of all time.

Modern translations

See also Modern English Bible translations

Much like early English Bibles, which were based on Greek texts or Latin translations, modern English translations of the Bible are based on the best-available original texts of the time. The translators put much scholarly effort into cross-checking the various sources such as the Pentateuch, Septuagint, Textus Receptus, and Masoretic Text. Relatively recent discoveries such as the Dead Sea scrolls provide additional reference information. There is some controversy over which texts should be used as a basis for translation, as some of the alternate sources do not include verses which are found in the Textus Receptus. Some say the alternate sources were poorly representative of the texts used in their time, whereas others claim the Textus Receptus includes passages that were added to the alternate texts improperly. These controversial passages are generally not the basis for disputed issues of doctrine, but tend to be additional stories or snippets of phrases. The majority of modern English translations, such as the New International Version, contain extensive text notes indicating where differences occur in original sources.

English translations can be broken down into Christian, Critical and Jewish sections.

Christian Translations

Since the early 19th century, there have been several translational responses to the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the world. Various denominational and organizational goals have produced, and continue to produce, Bibles that fit the needs of English speakers in all walks of life. Differing base texts, theological emphasis, style, and translation aims (e.g. readability vs literality) are just a few of the variables that contribute to the wide range of Bibles available today.

List of popular versions

This chart (obtained from Zondervan's website) shows how various Bible translations compare to one another on a scale from word-for-word to thought-for-thought.

There are over 50 complete modern English Christian translations and many more partial translations. The following are some of the most popular (listed alphabetically with common abbreviations and publication dates):

(de) = dynamic equivalence (fe) = formal equivalence
(de/fe) = more dynamic than formal
(fe/de) = more formal than dynamic

• American Standard Version - ASV (1901)(fe)
• Amplified Bible - AMP (1965)(contains alternative words)
• Contemporary English Version - CEV (1995)
• English Standard Version - ESV (2001)(fe)
• God's Word - GWD (1995)
• Good News Bible - GNB or Good News Translation - GNT (1976)(de)
• Holman Christian Standard Bible - HCSB (2004)
• International Standard Version - ISV (2003)
• Jerusalem Bible - JB (1966)
• King James Version (or Authorized Version) - KJV or AV (1611)(fe)
• The Holy Scriptures - HSV (2001)
• The Living Bible - TLB (1971)(paraphrase)
• The Message - MSG (2002)(idiomatic)
• New American Bible - NAB (1970, New Testament revised 1986)
• New American Standard Bible - NASB (1971, updated 1995)(fe)
• New English Bible - (1970)(de)
• New English Translation - NET (1996)(de/fe)
• New International Version - NIV (1978, revised 1984)(de/fe)
• New Jerusalem Bible - NJB (1985)
• New King James Version - NKJV (1982)(fe)
• New Living Translation - NLT (1996)(de)
• New Revised Standard Version - NRSV (1989)(fe/de)
• New Simplified Bible - NSB (2003) (de/fe)
• New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures - NWT (1950, revised 1984) (used by Jehovah's Witnesses)
• Revised English Bible - REB (1989)
• Revised Standard Version - RSV (1952)(fe)
• Revised Version (or English Revised Version) - RV or ERV (1885)
• Today's New International Version - TNIV (2002)(de)
• World English Bible - WEB (1997)

Critical Translations

Although most translations of the Bible have been authorized or made by religious people for religious use, historians and philologists have studied the Bible as an historical and literary text and have presented secular translations.

The best-known is the Anchor Bible; each book is translated by a different scholar, with extensive critical commentary.

Jewish Translations

The translation of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) has become the single most popular English translation of the Hebrew Bible. JPS has published two translations of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). The first was completed in 1917, and was based on the modern scholarship of its day; its literary form was consciously based on that of the King James version. By the 1950s this translation was felt to be outdated, and a new effort developed that involved cooperation between scholars of all the Jewish denominations. Their translation of the Torah was completed in 1962; it is referred to as the "New JPS", or sometimes called the New Jewish Version (NJV).

This translation is used in the official Torah commentary of Reform Judaism, and in the official Torah commentary of Conservative Judaism. This translation recently was used in The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford Univ. Press), which is becoming a de facto standard text for non-Orthodox Jews.

Mesorah Publications is an Orthodox Jewish publisher of Bible translations, rabbinic literature and Jewish prayerbooks. Their Stone Edition of the Chumash (Torah) and Stone Edition of the Tanach (also called the Artscroll Tanakh) have become very popular in the Orthodox Jewish community, and are in use by some non-Orthodox Jews as well. They have been criticised by a few Modern Orthodox scholars and by non-Orthodox scholars for mistranslating the text. The dispute comes about because they consciously attempted not to present a straight translation of the text, but rather to smooth out differences between the plain meaning of the text and later interpretations of the text by medieval bibical commentators such as Rashi.

While the New JPS translation takes into account the views of all the major Jewish medieval commentators, it also uses the results of modern biblical scholarship. It attempts in all cases to present the original meaning of the text. Mesorah Publications accepts the tenets of Orthodox Jewish theology, which holds that the original meaning of the text can only be understood in light of the Talmud and later rabbinic commentaries. To liberal Jews, this is a historical anachronism.

Everett Fox has translated the Torah and the book of Samuel for Schocken Press. Presumably more books will follow. Inspired by the German translation prepared by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, it is a highly accurate translation which tries to preserve both the poetic sound of the Bible and as much literality as can be done within English.

While the scholarship is the same for both Christians and Jews, there are distinctive features of Jewish translations. These include a somewhat greater preference for the Masoretic Text, a tendency to prefer transliterated instead of Anglicised names, and translations that reflect differing interpretations of certain passages. For example, Jewish translations translate עלמה ‘almâh in Isaiah 7:14 as young woman, while many Christian translations use virgin.

See Also

• History of the English Bible - Most of the above was taken from this Wikipedia article.
• Modern English Bible translations - A more thorough look at the modern translations (also from Wikipedia).
• Image:Bible Translation Chart.pdf - A chart provided by Zondervan outlining the most popular modern English translations.