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(Masoretic) Hebrew and Greek Into English

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(Masoretic) Hebrew and Greek Into English 1 Non-Catholic and Catholic Bible Translations from (Masoretic) Hebrew and Greek into English Rev. Dr. Assisi Saldanha, C.Ss.R. Rector, Mt. St. Alphonsus, Bangalore – 560084 Bible translations from the original languages (OT: [Masoretic Hebrew to English] and NT: [Greek to English]) can be done on the basis of formal equivalence, dynamic equivalence or optimal equivalence. In order to achieve a sense of completion, the well-known Catholic Bibles, The Douay-Rheims Version and the Knox Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate, are included here as an exception. The Exception (Latin Vulgate to English) The Douay-Rheims Version (DRV 1582 [NT]; 1609 [OT]) Pope Damasus assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Roman Council in 382 A.D. He commissioned St. Jerome to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, which became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official version, in 1546. The year 1558 A.D. marks the beginning of increasing hardships in England for followers of the Vulgate. Some were forced to flee to the European mainland for safety. Some went to Douay, France, where a college had been founded for the training of missionaries to return to England. It was there, ten years later, that Gregory Martin began to translate from the Latin Vulgate into English. The Douay-Rheims (DR) New Testament was first published by the English College at Rheims in 1582 A.D. For want of means, the Old Testament was not published until the first volume appeared in 1609 A.D., and the second in 1610 A.D. These volumes were for distribution in England. However, stringent Penal Laws in England forbade the entrance and ownership of such literature, which was considered inimical to the government and highly treasonable. The Douay-Rheims Version (DRV) contains all 73 books, including the seven Deutero-Canonical books (erroneously called Apocrypha by Protestants). One year later, in 1611 A.D., the Protestant King James Version, also known as the Authorized Version, was issued; but the Catholic Douay-Rheims was not allowed legal entry until the 18th century. The seven deutero-canonical books were included in the 1611 KJV, but not always in later KJV Bibles. The King James Version was permitted to stand without the contest of comparison with the Vulgate or the Douay-Rheims translation. The whole Douay-Rheims Bible was revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner in 1749-1752 A.D. The notes included in the text (in italics) were written by Dr. Challoner. The changes introduced by him were so considerable that, according to Cardinal Newman, they almost amounted to a new translation. So, also, Cardinal Wiseman wrote, “To call it any longer the Douay or Rheimish Version is an abuse of terms. It has been 2 altered and modified until scarcely any verse remains as it was originally published. In nearly every case Challoner’s changes took the form of approximating to the Authorized Version...” [Source: http://www.drbo.org/preface_1582.htm]. St. Jerome’s Vulgate on which the Douay- Rheims version is supposedly dependent has been assessed presently with some reservations. St. Jerome’s major contribution was in the Old Testament, which he translated afresh from the Hebrew, with the exception of the Psalter, and the books of Wisdom, Sirach and Maccabees, which he did not work on. In the case of the New Testament, he merely revised the text of the Old Latin Gospels (completing it in 383 CE). It is not known with any certainty when the rest of the New Testament was revised, or by whom. Again, the question of what Greek exemplar was used is disputed. The consensus today favours the view that Jerome used a contemporary manuscript of the early Koine type, and not the more reliable Alexandrian type manuscripts. Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical, Divino afflante Spiritu, nos. 20-22, brought about the awareness that the Vulgate does not always reflect accurately the original texts. The Neo-Vulgate undertaken on the initiative of Pope Paul VI and then promulgated by Pope John Paul II by Apostolic Constitution on April 25, 1979, represented not only innumerable alterations of the traditional text in purely stylistic matters, but more significantly a correction of it to the Greek text [Source: Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament. An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1989), 190-192]. Thus, there is no doubt the Douay-Rheims Version (DVR) did not entirely represent the Alexandrian text base with regard to the New Testament for the Vulgate on which it depended did not. It has been asserted that Jerome did have manuscripts that we don't have today — but this is misleading. He also lacked manuscripts that we do have, and he lacked the critical apparatus we have for sorting through textual variants. Again, it may be doubted that Jerome was a stupendous translator. No matter how good a translator is, the worthiness of his work will be proportionate to how much he exerts himself — and sometimes Jerome did not exert himself very much. For example, he translated the book of Tobit in a single night [Source: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4300]. The Knox Bible (1945 [NT]; 1950[OT]) In the early twentieth century, there was another English version also translated from the Vulgate, known as the Knox Bible. In 1936, Ronald Knox was requested by the Catholic hierarchies of England and Wales to undertake a new translation of the Vulgate with use of contemporary language and in light of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. When the New Testament was published in 1945, it was not intended to replace the Rheims version but to be used alongside it, as Bernard Griffin, the Archbishop of Westminster, noted in the preface. However, with the release of Knox's version of the Old Testament in 1950, the popularity of translations based on the Vulgate waned as Church authorities promoted the use of Bibles based primarily on Hebrew and Greek texts following the 1943 encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu. The Knox Bible was, however, one of the approved vernacular versions of the Bible used in the Lectionary readings for Mass from 1965 to the early 1970s, along with the Confraternity Bible. The Knox Bible was considered as the finest translation of the twentieth century. It was meant to read as if an Englishman had written it. [Source: 3 https://www.baroniuspress.com/book.php?wid=56&bid=60#tab=tab-1 See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox_Bible]. We shall now dwell on the English versions that were translated from Hebrew and Greek while categorizing each version under the type of translation it represents. I. Formal Equivalence What is “formal equivalence”? Often called “word-for-word” (or “literal”) translation, the principle of formal equivalence seeks as nearly as possible to preserve the structure of the original language (Hebrew or Greek). It seeks to represent each word of the original text with an exact equivalent word in the translation so that the reader can see word for word what the original human author wrote. The merits of this approach include its consistency with the conviction that the Holy Spirit did inspire the very words of Scripture in the original manuscripts. It also provides the English Bible student some access to the structure of the text in the original language. Formal equivalence can achieve accuracy to the degree that English has an exact equivalent for each word and that the grammatical patterns of the original language can be reproduced in understandable English. However, it can sometimes result in awkward, if not incomprehensible, English or in a misunderstanding of the author’s intent. The literal rendering of ancient idioms is especially difficult. However, the oversight committee, a committee that is formed to check on contentious issues that arise in the translation of texts, actually debates on the best rendering of such difficult texts. Indeed every translator and translation oversight committee, a committee, however, not found in the case of one-man translation, is conscious that they are dealing with the precious word of God and when an impasse is reached the translation oversight committee assumes collective responsibility in respect to the final decision it makes. The Bibles that reveal the literal method of translation are, among others, the KJV, ASV, NKJV, RSV, NASB, NRSV, ESV, NAB, NABRE and RNJB. A. The King James Version (KJV 1611) and The American Standard Version (ASV 1901) The King James Version (KJV) was first published in 1611. It sought to be a precise translation coupled with a majestic literary style. It should be noted, however, that the editors of the King James Version were instructed by King James I of England to make sure that the translation was in harmony with the theology of the Church of England. The King James Version was looked to as the standard English translation of the Bible for almost 400 years. By far most of the editions of the KJV printed between 1611 and 1890 contained the seven deutero-canonicals, designated as the “Apocrypha” books, and were bound between the New and Old Testaments. The first KJV printed in 1611 certainly contained the seven deutero-canonicals and these were regarded with great respect as is clear from the Translators' Preface to the 1611 KJV. Presently, the KJV omits these and contains only 39 books of the OT and 27 books of the NT.
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