That God Thing

Bible Translation Part Five

Most of us do not read the Bible in the original languages it was written which were Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. We rely on others to translate it into languages with which we are familiar. The original manuscripts have a commonality to early Hebrew which can make direct translation difficult. Would you believe that the original text of the first 24 (39 for Christians) was written not only from lower right but also without vowels – only consonants. The Masoretic Texts were the considerate work of Jewish scholars, the Masoretes, who compared all of the accepted biblical manuscripts and evaluated the relative merits of each text and compiled the composite with the addition of vowel points. Not surprisingly, many Hebrew words appear the same without what we think of as vowels. Context often provides the correct clues but not always. When we get to the New Testament, many of the characteristics found in Koine Greek are missing in the popular languages of today. Gender, plurality, tense and depth of meaning are much more apparent in Koine than in English.

Translation is intended to provide the reader with the closest meaning to the original

Transliteration is the closest literal meaning

Paraphrase is the interpreter’s gist of the idea contained in the text.

There is a wide disparity between these interpretations as to measure of accuracy of transmitting the actual content of the text. Again, remember the limited scope of access to text in the pre-Gutenberg era. While isolated religious communities might have access to the rare copies, this was highly unusual due to scarcity. Most of the masses had an oral tradition which did not ensure accuracy. The Jewish Orthodox tradition was that boys would memorize the Torah before they reached Bar Mitzvah (coming of age) but most never saw the entire written text. Even if they lived in the synagogue (House of Assembly) era, they probably would never see in their hands the synagogue’s scroll(s). Even after the introduction of the printing press in 1453, printed copies were extremely rare and expensive. The Gutenberg Bible, circa 1450s, was in the Latin Vulgate (“vulgate” for common) but this was in an age of illiteracy and only the learned knew to read.

The early non-Latin translation were not into English but several other European languages and for limited audiences. The first major English translation was by John Wycliffe and was directly from the Latin Vulgate circa 1380s. Tyndale was responsible for the first English printed partial edition and Coverdale published the first complete English Bible in 1535 which became the Great Bible with its first edition authorized by King Henry VIII 1539 for reading aloud in Church of England services. Coverdale’s Great Bible is built upon the work of the Tyndale Bible which was both incomplete and contained features which were revised. Coverdale completed the translation from both the Latin Vulgate and German translations but not from any Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic codices. These early translations included the Apocrypha as found in the Vulgate. The 1611 King James Version (KJV), also known as the Authorized Version (AV) contained the same 39 Old Testament, 14 Apocrypha and 27 New Testament books as the preceding versions. This was the third approved version for the Church of England taking the place of the Bishop’s Bible and was translated from Greek for the New Testament, Hebrew and Aramaic for Old Testament and Greek and Latin for the Apocrypha. This again was before more recent findings and rested upon the best available texts of the time.

The ‘modern’ era of true translation began in the early 1800s with the compiling of more comprehensive critical texts. The texts most often referenced by the translators were Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, Biblia Hebraica Quinta for the Old Testament and the New Testament Novum Testamentum Graece by the United Bible Societies. The first major translation was not received well by all readers – the Revised Standard Version 1952 translated “virgin” as “young woman” which was a transliteration not in keeping with the sensitivities of many denominations. Many of the successive translations were more accurate than the KJV but did not have the ‘majesty’ of the Old English. Several became favorites for theologians and preachers for their accuracy in conveying the literal meaning of texts – New American Standard Bible (NASB, 1971) and English Standard Version (ESV, 2001) while the New International Version (NIV, 1978) became a favorite for the masses for ease of reading the language in a flowing style. Other paraphrases were introduced not as study Bibles but for reading in the common language of the day. The Living Bible (TLB, 1971) and The Message (MSG, 2002) were widely circulated.

There have also been numerous translations for Catholics since the 1930s totaling 22 at last count.

According to Wycliffe Global Alliance, a community of more than 100 diverse groups, as of November 2024:

The full Bible has been translated into 756 languages for 6.0 billion people

The New Testament translated into 1,726 languages for 835 million people

Portions of the Bible translated into another 1,274 languages for 468 million people

Total of 3,756 languages with some portion of Scripture to 7.3 billion people (98%)

Additional Readings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls