- Key People:
- Martin Luther
- Erasmus
- St. Jerome
- Martin Buber
- John Wycliffe
- Related Topics:
- Bible
- Biblical criticism
Biblical translation
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What is biblical translation?
Biblical translation is the art and practice of rendering the Bible into languages other than those in which it was originally written. The Old and New Testaments have a long history of translation. The Jewish Bible was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. As Greek became the dominant language, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew canon into Greek. Many books of the Christian Bible were first written in Greek or Aramaic. The spread of Christianity led to translations of the Old and New Testaments into other languages, including Latin.
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Why was the Bible translated into different languages?
The Bible was translated into different languages to broaden its accessibility and impact. Originally written in Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic, the Old Testament was first translated into Greek, becoming known as the Septuagint, to serve Jewish communities where Greek was the common language. As Christianity spread, translations into languages like Coptic, Gothic, and Latin became necessary, with St. Jerome's Vulgate becoming the standard for Western Christianity for many centuries.
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How do translators choose which words to use in biblical translation?
Translators consider many factors when choosing words for biblical translation. They aim to convey the original meaning, but languages and cultures differ. Exact lexical equivalence is rare because words gain unique overtones and associations.
Literal translations can mislead, so translators adjust for the target audience. For example, metaphors natural in Hebrew might become less figurative in Greek. Translators of the Bible into languages of people culturally remote from Europe face difficulties finding lexical equivalents.
Ultimately, translators balance literal accuracy with literary and cultural relevance to convey the original text's meaning effectively.
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What were the original languages of the Bible?
The Hebrew Bible was written in Hebrew. Aramaic had replaced Hebrew as the language of Jewish people by the 6th century BCE, and some parts of the Old Testament, including the books of Daniel and Ezra, were written in Aramaic. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, made it accessible during the Hellenistic period. The New Testament was written in Greek.
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What are some important historical Bible translations?
Many historical Bible translations have had a profound impact. The Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament, was used by early Christians and remains the standard version in the Greek church. St. Jerome's Vulgate, a Latin translation, became the Roman Catholic Church's standard for over 1,000 years.
John Wycliffe and his followers produced the first complete English-language Bible in 1382. Martin Luther's German translation, completed in 1534, was the first from original languages into a modern European language and became the official Bible for German Protestants. The King James Version of 1611, a masterpiece of Jacobean English, was the principal Bible for English-speaking Protestants for 270 years.
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What are some difficulties or debates involved in translating the Bible?
Translating the Bible involves debates and difficulties that go back centuries. Translators face the challenge of balancing literal accuracy with literary and cultural relevance, as languages operate within distinct cultures, and exact lexical equivalence between languages is rare.
One difficulty arises from the evolution of language itself; for example, the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, a masterpiece of Jacobean English, has become difficult for contemporary readers to fully grasp, leading to new translations.
Additionally, some groups have concerns about specific translations, like the New International Version (NIV), with some scholars suggesting passages were distorted by an evangelical agenda. Gender-inclusive language has also been a source of contention.
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Biblical translation, the art and practice of rendering the Bible into languages other than those in which it was originally written. Both the Old and New Testaments have a long history of translation.
A brief treatment of biblical translation follows. For full treatment, see biblical literature: Texts and versions.
The Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, was originally written almost entirely in Hebrew, with a few short elements in Aramaic. When the Persian empire controlled the eastern Mediterranean basin, Aramaic became the lingua franca of the area, and for liturgical reasons it became necessary for the Jewish communities of the region to have the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), translated into the common language from traditional Hebrew. The resulting Targums (from Aramaic meturgeman, “translator”) survived after original Hebrew scrolls had been lost.
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By the mid-3rd century bce Greek was the dominant lingua franca, and Jewish scholars began the task of translating the Hebrew canon into that language, an undertaking that was not completed for more than a century. Because tradition held that each of the 12 tribes of Israel contributed six scholars to the project, the Greek version of the Jewish Bible came to be known later (in Latin) as the Septuagint (septuaginta: “70”).
The Hebrew Scriptures were the only Bible the early Christian church knew, and as the young religion spread out through the Greek-speaking world, Christians adopted the Septuagint. In the meantime, many of the books of the Christian Bible, the New Testament, were first written or recorded in Greek, and others in Aramaic.
The spread of Christianity necessitated further translations of both the Old and New Testaments into Coptic, Ethiopian, Gothic, and, most important, Latin. In 405 St. Jerome finished translating a Latin version that was based in part on the Septuagint, and this version, the Vulgate, despite errors introduced by copyists, became the standard of Western Christianity for a thousand years or more.
Hebrew scholars at Talmudic schools in Palestine and Babylonia about the 6th century ce began trying to retrieve and codify the Hebrew scriptures, restoring them authoritatively and in the Hebrew language. Over centuries they laboured to complete the traditional, or Masoretic, text, which since its completion in the 10th century has come to be universally accepted. The Masoretic version was transmitted by scribes with amazing fidelity down to the time of movable type in the 15th century.
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Jerome’s Latin Vulgate served as the basis for translations of both the Old and New Testament into Syriac, Arabic, Spanish, and many other languages, including English. The Vulgate provided the basis for the Douai-Reims Bible (New Testament, 1582; Old Testament, 1609–10), which remained the only authorized Bible in English for Roman Catholics until the 20th century.
The new learning in the 15th and 16th centuries revived the study of ancient Greek and led to new translations, among them an important one by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, who in 1516 published an edition of the New Testament containing the Greek text and his own translation into Latin. Meanwhile, in Germany, Martin Luther produced the first complete translation from the original Greek and Hebrew into a modern European language. His German-language translation of the New Testament was published in 1522 and that of the complete Bible in 1534; this remained the official Bible for German Protestants and was the basis for Danish, Swedish, and other translations.
The first complete English-language version of the Bible dates from 1382 and was credited to John Wycliffe and his followers. But it was the work of the scholar William Tyndale, who from 1525 to 1535 translated the New Testament and part of the Old Testament, that became the model for a series of subsequent English translations. All previous English translations culminated in the King James Version (1611; known in England as the Authorized Version), which was prepared by 54 scholars appointed by King James I. Avoiding strict literalism in favour of an extensive use of synonym, it was a masterpiece of Jacobean English and the principal Bible used by English-speaking Protestants for 270 years.
About the time of the invention of printing in 1450, there were only 33 different translations of the Bible. By about 1800 the number had risen to 71. By the late 20th century the entire Bible had been translated into more than 250 languages, and portions of the Bible had been published in more than 1,300 of the world’s languages.
New translations of the Bible into English proliferated in the 20th century. Among the more recent Protestant Bibles are the Revised Version (1881–85), a revision of the King James Version; the Revised Standard Version (1946–52), the New Revised Standard Version (1989), the New International Version (1978), and the English Standard Version (2001), which are widely accepted by American Protestants; and The New English Bible (1961–70) and The Revised English Bible (1989). Among the Roman Catholic Bibles are a translation by Ronald Knox (1945–49); The Jerusalem Bible (1966); The New Jerusalem Bible (1985); The New American Bible (1970); The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (1966; also called The Ignatius Bible); and The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (1989).