Talk:English translations of the Bible
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[edit] "Official" Versions
It may be interesting for some people to know which translation is officially recognized in various Christian (and Jewish) denominations (this means those translations that are used in liturgy etc.) Does anybody know more about that? 62.46.196.160
- There is no such thing as an "officially recognized" modern Jewish translation of the Bible, nor could there possibly be. In the template being created now for Christian translations there is a place to note which demonination produces the translation (is that "officially recognized"?).Dovi 16:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
- There is one official version, and it's the untranslated version. Torah, Tanakh, anyone who makes a decent attempt to translate it is accepted, but the translation is not ever seen as superior, or even remotely equal, to the original (despite still being sacred and important). Every other language will always miss something or another, missing the original intent and meaning of the hebrew. Thus, no "official" Jewish translation exists. SF2K1
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- So what about Christian translations? As far as I know, the Anglican Church uses the King James Version as de facto official version. The American Catholics use the "New American Bible", but what's about British or Irish Catholics? Does anybody know more? ~~
[edit] Overview of sources
Would it be feasible to have a quick-and-dirty table (or other form of concise representation) that shows the dependency of all those translations? I came here to quickly check which early English translations (Tyndale? Wyclif?) were based on the Vulgate and which weren't. Which use a Hebrew original? Which use the Septuagint original? Do the folks behind the Geneva Bible have access to Luther's translation? Etc., etc. I may be naive, but it seems as if such information is pretty well defined and could be presented as a table. (In any case, I found these otherwise wonderful pages lacking in giving me precisely the information I was looking for.) Arbor 13:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- It is by no means that simple. Shortly, people use the best material they have and as many sources as possible. For instance the New Revised Standard Version is a revision of the Revised Standard Version which "revised" the King James Version which was largely based on Tyndale's Version which was translated from the Vulgate and Luther's version or maybe only refered to them while using Hebrew and Greek sources available at that time. Rmhermen 16:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- Specifically to answer "Do the folks behind the Geneva Bible have access to Luther's translation?", is certainly yes, how much it inluenced them is another question. Our article notes that it was translated from "Greek New Testament and Hebrew scriptures that comprise the Christian Old Testament."; however, "The English rendering was substantially based on the earlier translations by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale." Rmhermen 16:47, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks. As you point out, all the information is there somewhere, including my other questions. Maybe what I really would want is a Source texts subsection of the current page that gives a brief overview, pretty much like what you started explaining in the above two paragraphs. My original idea of a tabular presentation is clearly silly. Arbor 17:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- There are lots of ways to categorize scriptures. The lack of database features in Wikipedia make it hard to organize things like the "source texts" that you mention. Please take a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible#Help develop Scripture Database website for a proposed improvement. --J. J. 19:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Problem with claim made in "Old English translations" section
"These centuries added to the (unfounded) conviction of many that the Bible ought not to become too common, that it should not be read by everybody, that it required a certain amount of learning to make it safe reading."
This claim of an "(unfounded) conviction" can be refuted with the fact that protestant church groups are over 30,000 in number at this time of writing. [Cpt|Kirk 12:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)]
i'm wondering whether 'although john wycleff....into old english' is really the right wording - given that to all intents & purposes, old english is about as different a language from modern english as modern german is from modern english; just because the word 'english' is in both names, they're not really the same language in any useful, plain english (!) sense. would it be worth rewording this opening paragraph to take that into account ? Star-one 12:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] This is only a small part of the history of the English bible
The link from "History of the English Bible" is confusing.Silver Surfer 10:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Educated Minorities and The People
"While the illiterate majority of the people had little desire for access to the Bible, the educated minority would have been averse to so great and revolutionary a change." I'm certainly not comfortable with this proclamation about "the people" having had "little desire for access to the Bible." I can understand their maybe having little need but, as I understand Western history, perhaps the primary reason for the spread of literacy itself was the desire for access to the Bible. Maybe a bit of acadmeic bias implied in this statement?--Economy1 —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 23:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Article citations..
The article doesn't clearly cite the sources. I read the 1911 encyclopedia entry near the bottom of the page, and there are statements made in this article that do not appear to be in the original material. Also, the book cited at the bottom of the article, in the references section, is not linked to any specific material within the article, so I can not be sure what specific text the reference is referring to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Godfollower4ever (talk • contribs) 04:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
