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{{main|Chapters and verses of the Bible}}
{{main|Chapters and verses of the Bible}}
:''See [[Tanakh#Chapters and verse numbers.2C book divisions|Tanakh]] for the Jewish textual tradition.''
:''See [[Tanakh#Chapters and verse numbers.2C book divisions|Tanakh]] for the Jewish textual tradition.''

The [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] [[Masoretic text]] contains verse endings as an important feature. According to the [[Talmud]]ic tradition, the verse endings are of ancient origin. The Masoretic textual tradition also contains section endings called ''parashiyot'', which are indicated by a space within a line (a "closed" section") or a new line beginning (an "open" section). The division of the text reflected in the ''parashiyot'' is usually thematic. The ''parashiyot'' are not numbered.

In early manuscripts (most importantly in Tiberian Masoretic manuscripts, such as the [[Aleppo codex]]) an "open" section may also be represented by a blank line, and a "closed" section by a new line that is slightly indented (the preceding line may also not be full). These latter conventions are no longer used in Torah scrolls and printed [[Hebrew Bible]]s. In this system the one rule differentiating "open" and "closed" sections is that "open" sections must ''always'' begin at the beginning of a new line, while "closed" sections ''never'' start at the beginning of a new line.

Another related feature of the Masoretic text is the division of the ''sedarim''. This division is not thematic, but is almost entirely based upon the ''quantity'' of text.

The Byzantines also introduced a chapter division of sorts, called ''Kephalaia''. It is not identical to the present chapters.

The current division of the Bible into chapters and the verse numbers within the chapters has no basis in any ancient textual tradition. Rather, they are medieval Christian inventions. They were later adopted by many Jews as well, as technical references within the Hebrew text. Such technical references became crucial to medieval rabbis in the historical context of forced debates with Christian clergy (who used the chapter and verse numbers), especially in late medieval Spain.<ref name = "inquisition">See [[Spanish Inquisition]].</ref> Chapter divisions were first used by Jews in a 1330 manuscript and for a printed edition in 1516. However, for the past generation, most Jewish editions of the complete [[Hebrew Bible]] have made a systematic effort to relegate chapter and verse numbers to the margins of the text.

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has often elicited severe criticism from traditionalists and modern scholars alike. Critics charge that the text is often divided into chapters in an incoherent way, or at inappropriate rhetorical points, and that it encourages citing passages out of context, in effect turning the Bible into a kind of textual quarry for clerical citations. Nevertheless, the chapter divisions and verse numbers have become indispensable as technical references for Bible study.

[[Stephen Langton]] is reputed to have been the first to put the chapter divisions into a Vulgate edition of the Bible, in 1205. They were then inserted into Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in the 1400s. [[Robert Estienne]] (Robert Stephanus) was the first to number the verses within each chapter, his verse numbers entering printed editions in 1551 (New Testament) and 1571 (Hebrew Bible).<ref name = "Fuller">[http://www.fuller.edu/ministry/berean/chs_vss.htm Chapters and Verses].</ref><ref name = "Examiner">[http://www.theexaminer.org/history/chap6.htm The Examiner].</ref>


===Reformation and Early Modern period===
===Reformation and Early Modern period===

Revision as of 18:26, 5 June 2009

This article is about the general history of Bible translations. For translations into specific languages, see Bible translations by language.

The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

The Latin Vulgate was dominant in Christianity through the Middle Ages. Since then, the Bible has been translated into many more languages. English Bible translations in particular have a rich and varied history of more than a millennium.

History

Hebrew Bible translations and editions

Some of the first translations of the Jewish Torah began during the first exile in Babylonia, when Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Jews. With most people speaking only Aramaic and not understanding Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the common person to understand the Torah as it was read in ancient synagogues.

The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some portions (notably in Daniel and Ezra) in Biblical Aramaic.

Other ancient Jewish translations, such as the Aramaic Targums, conform closely to masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, and all medieval and modern Jewish translations are based upon the same.

The most well-known movement to translate books of the Bible appeared in the 3rd century BC. Most of the Tanakh then existed in Hebrew, but 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. However, no major Greek translation was sought (as most Jews continued to speak Aramaic to each other) until Ptolemy II Philadelphus hired a large group of Jews (between 15 and 72 according to different sources) who had a fluent capability in both Koine Greek and Hebrew. These people produced the translation now known as the Septuagint.

From the 800s to the 1400s, Jewish scholars today known as Masoretes compared the text of all known biblical manuscripts in an effort to create a unified, standardized text. A series of highly similar texts eventually emerged, and any of these texts are known as Masoretic Texts (MT). The Masoretes also added vowel points (called niqqud) to the text, since the original text only contained consonant letters. This sometimes required the selection of an interpretation, since some words differ only in their vowels—their meaning can vary in accordance with the vowels chosen. In antiquity, variant Hebrew readings existed, some of which have survived in the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea scrolls, and other ancient fragments, as well as being attested in ancient versions in other languages.[1]

Jews also produced non-literal translations or paraphrases known as targums, primarily in Aramaic. They frequently expanded on the text with additional details taken from Rabbinic oral tradition.

Early translations into Greek and Latin

Origen's Hexapla placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament, including the 2nd century Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite. The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted by the church previously), confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the book of Revelation), and later established by Athanasius of Alexandria in 367 (with Revelation added), and Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 420. Latin translations predating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts.

The very first translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek was the Septuagint (LXX), which later became the accepted text of the Old Testament in the church and the basis of its canon. The Latin Vulgate by Jerome was based upon the Hebrew for those books of the Bible preserved in the Jewish canon (as reflected in the masoretic text), and on the Greek text for the deuterocanonical books.

Christian translations also tend to be based upon the Hebrew, though some denominations prefer the Septuagint (or may cite variant readings from both). Bible translations incorporating modern textual criticism usually begin with the masoretic text, but also take into account possible variants from all available ancient versions. The received text of the Christian New Testament is in Koine Greek,[2] and nearly all translations are based upon the Greek text.

Some time in the 2nd or 3rd century BC, the Torah was translated into Koine Greek, and over the next century, other books were translated (or composed) as well. This translation became known as the Septuagint[3] and was widely used by Greek-speaking Jews, and later by Christians.[4] It differs somewhat from the later standardized Hebrew (Masoretic Text). This translation was promoted by way of a legend (primarily recorded as the Letter of Aristeas) that seventy (or in some sources, seventy-two) separate translators all produced identical texts.[5]

Versions of the Septuagint contain several passages and whole books beyond what was included in the Masoretic texts of the Tanakh. In some cases these additions were originally composed in Greek, while in other cases they are translations of Hebrew books or variants not present in the Masoretic texts. Recent discoveries have shown that more of the Septuagint additions have a Hebrew origin than was once thought. While there are no complete surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew texts on which the Septuagint was based, many scholars believe that they represent a different textual tradition ("Vorlage") from the one that became the basis for the Masoretic texts.[1]

  • The use of numbered chapters and verses was not introduced until the Middle Ages and later. The system used in English was developed by Stephanus (Robert Estienne of Paris) (see Chapters and verses of the Bible)
  • Early manuscripts of the letters of Paul and other New Testament writings show no punctuation whatsoever.[6] The punctuation was added later by other editors, according to their own understanding of the text.

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages, translation, particularly of the Old Testament was discouraged. Nevertheless, there are some fragmentary Old English Bible translations, notably a lost translation of the Gospel of John into Old English by the Venerable Bede, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death around the year 735. An Old High German version of the gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in ca. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic dates to the late 9th century.

Alfred the Great had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch, which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared, in the West Saxon dialect; these are called the Wessex Gospels.

Pope Innocent III in 1199 banned unauthorized versions of the Bible as a reaction to the Cathar and Waldensian heresies. The synods of Toulouse and Tarragona (1234) outlawed possession of such renderings. There is evidence of some vernacular translations being permitted while others were being scrutinized.

The most notable Middle English Bible translation, Wyclif's Bible (1383), based on the Vulgate, was banned by the Oxford Synod in 1408. A Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in the mid 15th century, and in 1478, a Catalan translation in the dialect of Valencia.

Chapters and verses

Main article: Chapters and verses of the Bible
See Tanakh for the Jewish textual tradition.

Reformation and Early Modern period

See also: Early Modern English Bible translations

In 1521, Martin Luther was placed under the Ban of the Empire, and he retired to the Wartburg Castle. During his time there, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. It was printed in September 1522. The first complete Dutch Bible, partly based on the existing portions of Luther's translation, was printed in Antwerp in 1526 by Jacob van Liesvelt.[7]

Tyndale's New Testament translation (1526, revised in 1534, 1535 and 1536) and his translation of the Pentateuch (1530, 1534) and the Book of Jonah were met with heavy sanctions given the widespread belief that Tyndale changed the Bible as he attempted to translate it. The first complete French Bible was a translation by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, published in 1530 in Antwerp.[8] The Froschauer Bible of 1531 and the Luther Bible of 1534 (both appearing in portions throughout the 1520s) were an important part of the Reformation. The first English translations of Psalms (1530), Isaiah (1531), Proverbs (1533), Ecclesiastes (1533), Jeremiah (1534) and Lamentations (1534), were executed by the Protestant Bible translator George Joye in Antwerp. In 1535 Myles Coverdale published the first complete English Bible also in Antwerp.[9]

In 1584 both Old and New Testaments were translated to Slovene by Protestant writer and theologian Jurij Dalmatin. The Slovenes thus became the 12th nation in the world with a complete Bible in their language.

The missionary activity of the Jesuit order led to a large number of 17th century translation into languages of the New World.

Modern translation efforts

See also: International Bible Society, Bible Society, and Wycliffe Bible Translators

The Bible continues to be the most translated book in the world. The following numbers are approximations. As of 2005, at least one book of the Bible has been translated into 2,400 of the 6,900 languages listed by SIL,[10] including 680 languages in Africa, followed by 590 in Asia, 420 in Oceania, 420 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 210 in Europe, and 75 in North America. The United Bible Societies are presently assisting in over 600 Bible translation projects. The Bible is available in whole or in part to some 98 percent of the world's population in a language in which they are fluent.

The United Bible Society announced, that as of 31 December 2007[11] The Bible, with deuterocanonical material was available in 123 languages. The Tanakh and New Testament were available in 438 languages. The New Testament was available in 1168 languages, and portions of the Bible were available in 848 languages, for a total of 2,454 languages.

In 1999, Wycliffe Bible Translators announced Vision 2025. This project aims to see Bible translation begun by 2025 in every remaining language community that needs it. They currently estimate that 2,251 languages, representing 193 million people, lack a Bible translation.[12]

In 2001, Mike Coles, an RE teacher in Stepney, translated The Bible into Cockney Rhyming slang and in 2008, graphic representations of The Bible in Manga and Lego brick form were given approval by the Archbishop of Canterbury.[13]

Differences in Bible translations

This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress
Further information: Bible translations § Approaches, Dynamic and formal equivalence, and Bible version debate

As Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, have idioms and concepts not easily translated, there is an on going critical tension about whether it is better to give a word for word translation or to give a translation that gives a parallel idiom in the target language. For instance, in the English language Catholic translation, the New American Bible, as well as the Protestant translations of the Christian Bible, translations like the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version, and the New American Standard Bible are seen as fairly literal translations (or "word for word"), whereas translations like the New International Version and New Living Translation attempt to give relevant parallel idioms. The Living Bible and The Message are two paraphrases of the Bible that try to convey the original meaning in contemporary language. The further away one gets from word to word translation, the text becomes easier to read while relying more on the theological, linguistic or cultural understanding of the translator, which one would not normally expect a lay reader to require.

One translation of the Bible, the New World Translation, used mainly by Jehovah's Witnesses, is seen as controversial by some because of the renderings of key verses. However, this Bible also takes a "word for word" translation stance. The NWT translates the New Testament Kyrios, "Lord," as "Jehovah." However, it does not do so consistently, and avoids this translation when "Lord" unambiguously refers to Jesus. Philippians 2:11 is translated as "Jesus Christ is Lord" instead of "Jesus Christ is Jehovah."

A variety of linguistic, philological and ideological approaches to translation have been used, including:

A great deal of debate occurs over which approach most accurately communicates the message of the biblical languages' source texts into target languages. Despite these debates, however, many who study the Bible intellectually or devotionally find that selecting more than one translation approach is useful in interpreting and applying what they read. For example, a very literal translation may be useful for individual word or topical study, while a paraphrase may be employed for grasping initial meaning of a passage.

In addition to linguistic concerns, theological issues also drive Bible translations.

The Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were reinterpreted from the King James Bible by a distributed workforce through Amazon Mechanical Turk.[14]

Inclusive language

Main article: Gender in Bible translation

Traditionally, English masculine pronouns have been used interchangeably to refer to the male gender and to all people. For instance, "All men are mortal" implies that all people are subject to death. English language readers and hearers have had to interpret masculine pronouns (and such words as "man" and "mankind") based on context. Further, both Hebrew and Greek, like some of the Latin-origin languages, use the male gender of nouns and pronouns to refer to groups that contain both sexes. This creates some difficulty in determining whether a noun or pronoun should be translated using terms that refer to men only, or generically to men and women inclusively. Context sometimes, but not always, helps determine whether to decode them in a gender-insensitive or gender-specific way. Some newer translations of the Bible use gender inclusive language when a passage refers to all of humanity.

References

  1. ^ a b Menachem Cohen, The Idea of the Sanctity of the Biblical Text and the Science of Textual Criticism in HaMikrah V'anachnu, ed. Uriel Simon, HaMachon L'Yahadut U'Machshava Bat-Z'mananu and Dvir, Tel-Aviv, 1979.
  2. ^ Some scholars hypothesize that certain books (whether completely or partially) may have been written in Aramaic before being translated for widespread dissemination. One very famous example of this is the opening to the Gospel of John, which some scholars argue to be a Greek translation of an Aramaic hymn.
  3. ^ The Canon Debate, McDonald & Sanders editors, chapter by Sundberg, page 72, adds further detail: "However, it was not until the time of Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) that the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures came to be called by the Latin term septuaginta. [70 rather than 72] Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, bypassing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew wherever he could instead of the Septuagint. The New Testament was translated into Gothic in the 4th century by Ulfilas. In the 5th century, Saint Mesrob translated the bible into Armenian. Also dating from the same period are the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Georgian translations. In his City of God 18.42, while repeating the story of Aristeas with typical embellishments, Augustine adds the remark, "It is their translation that it has now become traditional to call the Septuagint" ...[Latin omitted]... Augustine thus indicates that this name for the Greek translation of the scriptures was a recent development. But he offers no clue as to which of the possible antecedents led to this development: Exod 24:1–8, Josephus [Antiquities 12.57, 12.86], or an elision. ...this name Septuagint appears to have been a fourth- to fifth-century development."
  4. ^ Karen Jobes and Moises Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint ISBN 1-84227-061-3, (Paternoster Press, 2001). - The current standard for Introductory works on the Septuagint.
  5. ^ Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint, Michael A. Knibb, Ed., London: T&T Clark, 2004.
  6. ^ http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/images/papyruslg.gif
  7. ^ Paul Arblaster, Gergely Juhász, Guido Latré (eds) Tyndale's Testament, Brepols 2002, ISBN 2-503-51411-1, p. 120.
  8. ^ Paul Arblaster, Gergely Juhász, Guido Latré (eds) Tyndale's Testament, Brepols 2002, ISBN 2-503-51411-1, pp. 134-135.
  9. ^ Paul Arblaster, Gergely Juhász, Guido Latré (eds) Tyndale's Testament, Brepols 2002, ISBN 2-503-51411-1, pp. 143-145.
  10. ^ "The Bible in the Renaissance - William Tyndale". Dom Henry Wansbrough.
  11. ^ United Bible Society (2008). "Statistical Summary of languages with the Scriptures". Retrieved 2008-03-22.
  12. ^ Wycliffe Bible Translators (2007). "Progress Report". Retrieved 2008-03-22. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  13. ^ The Bible but not as you know it, BBC Magazine, retrieved 28/11/2008
  14. ^ "The Turker's Gospel". Retrieved 2008-10-23.

See also

Ancient and classical translations:

English Translations:

Other languages:

Related:

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