On the first day of July, 2011, I published a post quoting a dispute I had with a couple of other people over some 13th-century translation of the Bible about which they claimed to know. I googled 13th-century bible translations and found some interesting things, but nothing having to do with 13th-century translations of the Bible. I googled "13th-century bible translations" and got 0 hits. 0 also for "13th-century translations of the bible."
Without quotation marks around the search terms, search results occur with references to the Cathars, and to their demands, in opposition to the Catholic Church, for vernacular translations of the Bible -- the opposite of what the idiots in the 2011 Wrong Monkey post claimed to know about, translations made by the Catholic Church. Maybe that's what the idiots had in mind. As I said, I've found references to demands made by the Cathars for translations of the Bible. I'm still looking for actual translations of Biblical texts made during the 13th century.
Someone claimed on Wikipedia that King Dinis of Portugal (1261-1325) translated a part of Genesis into Portugese, a translation which since has been lost.
On Wikipedia. I haven't so far been able to find any mention of this anywhere else.
Here we go: 13th-century Spanish translations: La Fazienda de Ultra Mar, a Spanish account of travels in the Holy Land, appeared early in the 13th century and contained Biblical passages in the vernacular. And was suppressed by the Council of Tarragona in 1234. And then a complete Castilian Bible appeared under the reign of the renowned scholar and patron of scholars, Alfonso X, King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 to 1284.
I could be wrong, but I don't think this is what the idiots were thinking of back in 2011. I think it was more like this: some New Atheists overheard something somewhere about King James having some Bible verses altered in the King James Bible to suit his political ends. Without first bothering to learn which verses these were or how or why they were altered, they took this assertion of politic-religious mendacity and ran with it, put it through their New Atheist echo chambers and games of Elephant, and by the time these particular idiots met me, they thought they had learned about Bible translations (into what language or languages?) made by the Catholic Church (by whom in the Catholic Church?) to suit the Church's agenda (in what way?), and without even posing any of the question in parentheses there, let alone answering them, they thought that they had blown the lid off of an historical scandal.
Something like that. This is what many New Atheists do, which they think is studying history. The way they tend to react to people who actually know something about the historical topic they think they're discussing, is illustrated by they the way they behave toward me in the Wrong Monkey post from 2011 linked above. I for one am not getting paid nearly enough to put up with that sort of treatment. Why would actual historians want to hang around for it, when some of us actually appreciate what they do? I wonder how Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse Tyson get treated when they try to talk to Bill Maher about vaccines.
It's stupidity. Stupidity isn't merely ignorance, it's the dogged determination to remain ignorant.
Showing posts with label bible translations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bible translations. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2016
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Chronological List Of Early Bible Translations
I had already known for a long time that Ulfila's translation of the New Testament into Gothic was older than Jerome's Vulgate; but that chronological tidbit didn't really strike me until recently, and when it did, I thought it might be fun to chronologically list some early Bible translations.
My interest in this topic is mostly linguistic, while the interest of many or most people who have looked into it has been greatly or mostly theological. It's difficult for me to sort out the more authoritative Biblical scholars from the less authoritative, in part because there are so many of them, and unfortunately, the biased nuts do not helpfully affix labels in bold print at the head of their papers saying WARNING: BIASED NUT. DO NOT USE FINDINGS. Despite the lack of such labels, gross bias is often easy to spot, as when a member of a particular denomination affixes a significantly earlier date than anyone else to the translation most closely associated with his denomination, and acts as if he has never heard of the more conventional dating.
We do not know when some of these translations first appeared, and can only say that they are first firmly attested at such and such a date, and more weakly at such and such an early date, and speculate about the translation's beginnings.
Such is the case with the oldest-known (to me) Bible translation, the Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament into Greek. The best I can do is to tell you that this translation was made in the 3rd and 2nd centuries in and/or around Alexandria, where a Jewish community had resided long enough that many or most of them were more familiar with the Greek language than with Hebrew.
Next come Syriac and Old Latin translations of the New Testament. (The term "Old Latin" is used to distinguish the earliest Latin Biblical translations from Jerome's Vulgate.) There is evidence of translation of parts of the New Testament into both of these languages both as early as the late 2nd century.
Next, we have evidence of translations of parts of the New Testament into Coptic going back as far as the 3rd century.
And then comes the "Gothic Bible," or to be more exact, the Gothic New Testament translation by Ulfila. It is well-established that Ulfilia (ca 311-383) was the translator.
Next, Jerome's Vulgate, begun after 382 and finished by 405. Recently scholars have been falling all over each other in the rush to proclaim that it is not correct to call this work Jerome's Vulgate, because not every single bit of the translation is Jerome's work, which is true, but most of it is by Jerome, and he at least inspected and approved the rest in the "Old Latin" versions, and revised those parts to some extent -- so I personally have no problem calling it Jerome's Vulgate. Just be warned, some people do have a problem with that.
It is with no great confidence at all that I guess that Biblical translations into Armenian, Ethiopic and Georgian began in the 5th century. I could be wrong, for all I know they could have begin earlier or later. There may be some really great and authoritative scholarship on the origins of all three of those written languages, but I haven't found any of it yet.
And finally there are Saints Cyril and Methodius, Byzantine missionaries to the Slavs. They are said to have translated parts of the Bible into Old Church Slavonic in the 860's. But some sources say they did this, while other sources say they "are credited" with doing this, which looks to me like scholar-speak for "they didn't do it, but for a long time a lot of people have thought they did, and I don't want to get into the middle of a huge argument right now." So I'm going to guess (guess!) that biblical translations into Old Church Slavonic began some time before 900, possibly by Cyril and/or Methodius.
By 900, writing in vernacular German had begun, and it would soon get underway in French and Spanish, which meant some translations into those languages of some parts of the Bible, although the Vulgate was well-established all over Western Europe and would remain overwhelmingly the preferred version there for centuries to come.
And if you're asking, Well, so what?! then I say: Well, it sort of lends a little bit of perspective to the 21st-century squabbles, in some English-speaking regions, over the 17th-century King James Version, doesn't it? and to the uproar caused by the KJV and Luther's German Bible and by the great unwashed in England and Germany learning to read at last. Every one of the translations of the Bible I've listed above, with the single exception of the Gothic version, has been continuously used by a wide reading public ever since it was first made.
My interest in this topic is mostly linguistic, while the interest of many or most people who have looked into it has been greatly or mostly theological. It's difficult for me to sort out the more authoritative Biblical scholars from the less authoritative, in part because there are so many of them, and unfortunately, the biased nuts do not helpfully affix labels in bold print at the head of their papers saying WARNING: BIASED NUT. DO NOT USE FINDINGS. Despite the lack of such labels, gross bias is often easy to spot, as when a member of a particular denomination affixes a significantly earlier date than anyone else to the translation most closely associated with his denomination, and acts as if he has never heard of the more conventional dating.
We do not know when some of these translations first appeared, and can only say that they are first firmly attested at such and such a date, and more weakly at such and such an early date, and speculate about the translation's beginnings.
Such is the case with the oldest-known (to me) Bible translation, the Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament into Greek. The best I can do is to tell you that this translation was made in the 3rd and 2nd centuries in and/or around Alexandria, where a Jewish community had resided long enough that many or most of them were more familiar with the Greek language than with Hebrew.
Next come Syriac and Old Latin translations of the New Testament. (The term "Old Latin" is used to distinguish the earliest Latin Biblical translations from Jerome's Vulgate.) There is evidence of translation of parts of the New Testament into both of these languages both as early as the late 2nd century.
Next, we have evidence of translations of parts of the New Testament into Coptic going back as far as the 3rd century.
And then comes the "Gothic Bible," or to be more exact, the Gothic New Testament translation by Ulfila. It is well-established that Ulfilia (ca 311-383) was the translator.
Next, Jerome's Vulgate, begun after 382 and finished by 405. Recently scholars have been falling all over each other in the rush to proclaim that it is not correct to call this work Jerome's Vulgate, because not every single bit of the translation is Jerome's work, which is true, but most of it is by Jerome, and he at least inspected and approved the rest in the "Old Latin" versions, and revised those parts to some extent -- so I personally have no problem calling it Jerome's Vulgate. Just be warned, some people do have a problem with that.
It is with no great confidence at all that I guess that Biblical translations into Armenian, Ethiopic and Georgian began in the 5th century. I could be wrong, for all I know they could have begin earlier or later. There may be some really great and authoritative scholarship on the origins of all three of those written languages, but I haven't found any of it yet.
And finally there are Saints Cyril and Methodius, Byzantine missionaries to the Slavs. They are said to have translated parts of the Bible into Old Church Slavonic in the 860's. But some sources say they did this, while other sources say they "are credited" with doing this, which looks to me like scholar-speak for "they didn't do it, but for a long time a lot of people have thought they did, and I don't want to get into the middle of a huge argument right now." So I'm going to guess (guess!) that biblical translations into Old Church Slavonic began some time before 900, possibly by Cyril and/or Methodius.
By 900, writing in vernacular German had begun, and it would soon get underway in French and Spanish, which meant some translations into those languages of some parts of the Bible, although the Vulgate was well-established all over Western Europe and would remain overwhelmingly the preferred version there for centuries to come.
And if you're asking, Well, so what?! then I say: Well, it sort of lends a little bit of perspective to the 21st-century squabbles, in some English-speaking regions, over the 17th-century King James Version, doesn't it? and to the uproar caused by the KJV and Luther's German Bible and by the great unwashed in England and Germany learning to read at last. Every one of the translations of the Bible I've listed above, with the single exception of the Gothic version, has been continuously used by a wide reading public ever since it was first made.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Someone Asked What Version Of The Bible People Use
KJV, Revised Standard, New American Standard, Today's English Version (officially approved by the RCC 1993), Abegg-Flint-Ulrich Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, the Coptic-English-French critical edition of the Gospel of Judas et al by Kasser et al, the Casiodoro de Reina Santa Biblia, theTraduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bijbel: vertaling in opdracht van het Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap bewerkt door de Daartoe Benoemde Commissies, vol 3 of the Expositor's Greek Testament ed by Nicoli, some Russian version, some Syriac version, Die Heilige Schrift uebersetzt von Menge, some Armenian version, the Rahlfs-Hahnart Septuaginta, edito altera, the 4th edition (1994) of the Stuttgart Vulgate, and the 27th edition, 5th, corrected printing, of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament.
I think that's all of them for now. Sure would like the Gothic Bible. And a Luther Bible with the actual 16th-century orthography. And a Georgian bible. And Ethiopic. And Coptic (all I have in Coptic now are, as mentioned above, the few apocryphal works from the Codex Tchacos).
PS: To try to cheer myself up from all the homophobes and book-burners and other morons responding in the thread ("Any version is good for tinder, heh heh heh." "Queen James was completely gay, heh heh heh." "I rely on the FSM archives, heh heh heh." "I use the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, so I'm protected at all times from religious cooties, heh heh heh." Etc. Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.), I went ahead and ordered a copy of the Gothic Bible from Amazon, so add that to my list.
(4th-century Gothic. More than 400 years older than the next-oldest thing written in any Germanic language. One thing I've come to understand by studying history is that new things don't occur to most people naturally; someone has to do a new and strange thing, and then people become accustomed to the idea, or they don't, and if they don't the thing may not be done again for a long time. In Western Europe in the 4th century, they spoke whatever language they spoke, a Germanic language in some cases, and either they knew how to write in Latin, plus Greek in a few cases, or they didn't write. It didn't occur to people that there was any reason to write anything in any Germanic languages. Except for this one guy who translated the Bible into Gothic. And then 400 years later, around AD 800, as a part of his massive support of education which mostly meant education in Latin, Charlemagne encouraged some people to write some things in German, the first things written in German. And the writing in the Germanic languages still didn't really catch on until after AD 1000.)
I think that's all of them for now. Sure would like the Gothic Bible. And a Luther Bible with the actual 16th-century orthography. And a Georgian bible. And Ethiopic. And Coptic (all I have in Coptic now are, as mentioned above, the few apocryphal works from the Codex Tchacos).
PS: To try to cheer myself up from all the homophobes and book-burners and other morons responding in the thread ("Any version is good for tinder, heh heh heh." "Queen James was completely gay, heh heh heh." "I rely on the FSM archives, heh heh heh." "I use the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, so I'm protected at all times from religious cooties, heh heh heh." Etc. Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.), I went ahead and ordered a copy of the Gothic Bible from Amazon, so add that to my list.
(4th-century Gothic. More than 400 years older than the next-oldest thing written in any Germanic language. One thing I've come to understand by studying history is that new things don't occur to most people naturally; someone has to do a new and strange thing, and then people become accustomed to the idea, or they don't, and if they don't the thing may not be done again for a long time. In Western Europe in the 4th century, they spoke whatever language they spoke, a Germanic language in some cases, and either they knew how to write in Latin, plus Greek in a few cases, or they didn't write. It didn't occur to people that there was any reason to write anything in any Germanic languages. Except for this one guy who translated the Bible into Gothic. And then 400 years later, around AD 800, as a part of his massive support of education which mostly meant education in Latin, Charlemagne encouraged some people to write some things in German, the first things written in German. And the writing in the Germanic languages still didn't really catch on until after AD 1000.)
Friday, October 30, 2015
ԱՒԵՏԱՐԱՆ ԸՍՏ ՄԱՏԹԷՈՍԻ 1:1
βιβλος γενεσεως ιησου χριστου υιου δαυιδ υιου αβρααμ
Յիսուս Քրիստոսի՝ Դաւիթի որդիին, Աբրահամի որդիին ծնունդի գիրքը:
liber generationis Iesu Christi filii David filii Abraham
Geslachtsregister van Jezus Christus, de zoon van David, de zoon van Abraham.
Tabla genealógica de Jesucristo, hijo de David, hijo de Abraham:
Généalogie de Jésus-Christ, fils de David, fils d’Abraham.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Вот родословие Исы Масиха[a], потомка Давуда, потомка Ибрахима.
Okay, that's Matthew 1:1 in Greek, Armenian, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, French, English and Russian. I wanted to include the verse in some other languages too, some of the ones into which it was translated earliest, such as Coptic and Syriac and Ethiopic, but, because of a combination of my linguistic limitation and the issue of browsers reading fonts -- it was hard. Hard work made me quit.
The title of the post is "Matthew 1:1" in Armenian.
Why did I make this post? Because I've listened to a lot of people, some expert, most not, talking and debating and arguing and screaming at each other about the transmission of the Bible, and it occurred to me that most of the discussion had to do with the bible in its original form, and in English. And then a little bit about the Latin Vulgate, because Catholicism.
And the Bible has been translated into -- how many languages? According to Wikipedia, 539 languages for the complete bible and 1329 languages for the New Testament. Who knows how accurate or out of date those figures might be. Not me, that's who.
So anyway, there's all this screaming back and forth which I've encountered, about the problems of corruption and translation and deliberate and accidental distortion of the Bible text, back and forth, between all of these people who rarely mention any languages others than Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and English.
So, what are the features of the Armenian, Dutch, Spanish, French and Russian translations I've given above, how many of them are the most popular and/or familiar versions in the given language, how many are the versions most highly regarded by scholars, most widely esteemed by them to be good and accurate translations of the original Greek? That's a really good question. I don't have the slightest idea. I also don't have the slightest idea what sort of discussions and debates and screaming matches are going on about the text of Bible in Armenia or Holland or Flanders or Spanish-speaking areas or France or Russia, how much those screaming matches in other languages might resemble the ones I've seen in English, how much the histories of Bible translation in each of those languages might effect those screaming matches. Absolutely no clue. It has just now only begun to occur to me to wonder about such things.
Actually, I remember now, I do have a little bit of a clue: I've seen such screaming matches in German as well as in English. Disappointingly, the German dust-ups weren't much different than the English ones. But one can always hope. The bible was first translated into Armenian long before the English or German languages even existed. Maybe that makes a difference. Is the Armenian Matthew 1:1 I copied and pasted above the same as the Matthew 1:1 in the first Armenian translation? I don't know. How many Greeks read the original Koine New Testament and/or the original Septuagint, how many read versions which are substantially different?
It may surprise you to learn that I don't know.
It's a big world. I left out Chinese and Portugese and Arabic and Japanese and Korean and Italian and Hindi versions of Matthew 1:1. Just to name a few of the biggies I left out. Biggies in terms of numbers, not necessarily in terms of interesting issues they might raise for scholars of the Bible.
What sort of issues? Yeah. Again: Excellent question.
Յիսուս Քրիստոսի՝ Դաւիթի որդիին, Աբրահամի որդիին ծնունդի գիրքը:
liber generationis Iesu Christi filii David filii Abraham
Geslachtsregister van Jezus Christus, de zoon van David, de zoon van Abraham.
Tabla genealógica de Jesucristo, hijo de David, hijo de Abraham:
Généalogie de Jésus-Christ, fils de David, fils d’Abraham.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Вот родословие Исы Масиха[a], потомка Давуда, потомка Ибрахима.
Okay, that's Matthew 1:1 in Greek, Armenian, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, French, English and Russian. I wanted to include the verse in some other languages too, some of the ones into which it was translated earliest, such as Coptic and Syriac and Ethiopic, but, because of a combination of my linguistic limitation and the issue of browsers reading fonts -- it was hard. Hard work made me quit.
The title of the post is "Matthew 1:1" in Armenian.
Why did I make this post? Because I've listened to a lot of people, some expert, most not, talking and debating and arguing and screaming at each other about the transmission of the Bible, and it occurred to me that most of the discussion had to do with the bible in its original form, and in English. And then a little bit about the Latin Vulgate, because Catholicism.
And the Bible has been translated into -- how many languages? According to Wikipedia, 539 languages for the complete bible and 1329 languages for the New Testament. Who knows how accurate or out of date those figures might be. Not me, that's who.
So anyway, there's all this screaming back and forth which I've encountered, about the problems of corruption and translation and deliberate and accidental distortion of the Bible text, back and forth, between all of these people who rarely mention any languages others than Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and English.
So, what are the features of the Armenian, Dutch, Spanish, French and Russian translations I've given above, how many of them are the most popular and/or familiar versions in the given language, how many are the versions most highly regarded by scholars, most widely esteemed by them to be good and accurate translations of the original Greek? That's a really good question. I don't have the slightest idea. I also don't have the slightest idea what sort of discussions and debates and screaming matches are going on about the text of Bible in Armenia or Holland or Flanders or Spanish-speaking areas or France or Russia, how much those screaming matches in other languages might resemble the ones I've seen in English, how much the histories of Bible translation in each of those languages might effect those screaming matches. Absolutely no clue. It has just now only begun to occur to me to wonder about such things.
Actually, I remember now, I do have a little bit of a clue: I've seen such screaming matches in German as well as in English. Disappointingly, the German dust-ups weren't much different than the English ones. But one can always hope. The bible was first translated into Armenian long before the English or German languages even existed. Maybe that makes a difference. Is the Armenian Matthew 1:1 I copied and pasted above the same as the Matthew 1:1 in the first Armenian translation? I don't know. How many Greeks read the original Koine New Testament and/or the original Septuagint, how many read versions which are substantially different?
It may surprise you to learn that I don't know.
It's a big world. I left out Chinese and Portugese and Arabic and Japanese and Korean and Italian and Hindi versions of Matthew 1:1. Just to name a few of the biggies I left out. Biggies in terms of numbers, not necessarily in terms of interesting issues they might raise for scholars of the Bible.
What sort of issues? Yeah. Again: Excellent question.
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