Sermon Tone Analysis

To translate is to restate the meaning of words in one language with words of another.

Translation of Scripture is part of the work of interpreting and communicating it.

Regarding Don Quixote

Don Quixote, “The first modern novel”, was written in 1605; Original language was Spanish.

First Translated into English in 1612.

So many English translations have been made it is hard to put a number on them.

New Translations have been published as recently as 2012.

Now, if one of your high school teachers had told you: “Your assignment is to read Don Quixote in the original Spanish Version, and then give me an extensive report on it.

If you don;t know any Spanish, this would be difficult.

But even if you knew modern Spanish, it would still be difficult.

How many changes have happened to the Spanish Language in the over 400 years since Don Quixote was first published?

But let’s pretend a bit further that you were one of those clever students who pointed this out to your teacher and your teacher said, “Fine, you don’t need to read it in Spanish, just read it in the original English Translation from 1612.”

Well, this may be somewhat better, but still, you would need one of those Barnes & Noble versions that has all the explanations on the side.

So you further argue with your teacher, and your answer is that you may choose one of the English translations.

How would you know which to choose?

Some Questions:

1) Which translation is most reliable, or faithful to the original Spanish version?

2) What would be better, to translate the Old Spanish into New Spanish and then into modern English, or would it be better to translate directly into Modern English?

Or should it be translated only into the English in use in 1605 and left alone?

3) Which translation would you rather read, the first translation into English from 1612, or one of the newer translations?

4) Which translation would best convey to a modern person what the author was really writing?

The original manuscripts of the Bible were written in ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.

Hebrew and Greek have changed much since the original writings.

Aramaic is a so-called “dead” language.

So how can we as modern readers have any chance to understand it?

Because of translations.

Which translation is best?

That is not so easy to answer.

For centuries, translators have been doing their best to accurately translate the Bible into the native language of people around the world so that they can access it and read it for themselves.

Some people have perverted the translation process, bringing into their translations politics, or manipulating the Bible to say something they want it to say.

But the major translations that are most common in churches today have been carefully been put together by teams of language experts who meticulously work to translate the bible as best they can.

In the translating process, which usually takes many years, these teams work together, challenging each other, refining, and finally putting out a translation that is peer reviewed.

No translation is perfect, because imperfect people worked on them.

While it is good to learn how to do our own checking into how these translations were made, we can generally trust the most common translations.

Next week, we will talk about interpretation, which is the attempt to help readers and hearers of Scripture understand and apply the biblical text.

That is the primary job I have.

It’s something I take very seriously, getting it right, and applying it properly.

And preparing a sermon is the work of interpretation, but so is private study.

Tonight I want to take a look at some of the heroes who had a mark on the translation of scripture into English.

I can’t cover everyone, but will highlight some of the main players in this story of how we have the Bibles we have today.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bible, English Versions of The)

BIBLE, ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE An overview of the history and development of versions of the English Bible.IntroductionEnglish speakers now have access to an unprecedented number of Bible versions in their own language.

Most of these are produced by and marketed to Christians—primarily Protestants, but also Roman Catholics and adherents of the Orthodox churches.

Fewer versions of English-language Bibles prepared by and for members of the Jewish community exist.

In recent years, an array of electronic Bible texts have also been made available.The choice of texts and formats available to today’s readers is vast and continues to grow.

However, this situation has not always been the case, and is relatively recent.

At points in history, governments regulated English-language versions, and punished—even with the death penalty—those who dared to oppose official policies regarding biblical translation.

Individuals who disregarded these regulations are now viewed as heroes or martyrs.The history of Bible translations in the English language is not a dry recitation of names and dates.

Rather, it is the story of real human beings who were motivated by their sincere awareness of how the word of God should be presented in a world where Hebrew and Greek (the original languages of the Bible) were no longer understood.Early TranslationsBible translation into English goes back to the seventh century, when the poet and cowherd Caedmon retold Bible stories in his Anglo-Saxon verse.

Shortly thereafter, Bishop Aldhelm of Sherborne translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon; England’s first church historian, the Venerable Bede, reportedly began to translate the Gospel of John, although his work is now lost.Two centuries later, the English king Alfred the Great (871–899) included an Old English version of the Ten Commandments in his law code; at about the same time, extensive interlinear glosses—which explained Latin terms in Anglo-Saxon—began to appear in biblical manuscripts.

In the late 10th century, a monk named Alfred inserted his complete Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospels between the lines of text in the Lindisfarne Gospels, an eighth-century illuminated Gospel book that is now kept in the British Library.WycliffeThe theologian and philosopher John Wycliffe’s translation of much of the Bible into Middle English appeared in the 1380s.

His translation was part of a reformist project to make the Bible and its teachings available to the general public.

Wycliffe’s translation was based on the Latin text known as the Vulgate.

He died in 1384; however, his bones were dug up decades later and burned as posthumous punishment for his alleged heresy.

His translation was banned, and Bible translation was subsequently forbidden in England for a period of time.TyndaleThe priest William Tyndale, who was born about a century after Wycliffe’s death, produced an English-language version that derived directly from Hebrew and Greek, the original languages (along with a bit of Aramaic) in which the Bible was composed.

Because Bible translation was banned in England, Tyndale worked in Germany, where he was active in the first part of the 16th century—at precisely the same time Martin Luther was preparing his German-language translation as part of his reformation.

In 1525, Tyndale produced his New Testament.

Over the next decade, Tyndale revised his initial English version of the New Testament and published renderings of portions of the Old.Although Tyndale remained on the continent, copies of his translation were smuggled into England almost as soon as they came off the press.

Like Wycliffe, Tyndale insisted that the message of Scripture should be directly accessible to all.

In 1535, before Tyndale could complete his Old Testament, he was imprisoned in Brussels for 16 months, tried by the Catholic Church, and killed as a heretic.

However, Tyndale’s work did not die with him, as other translators borrowed extensively from his text.CoverdaleIn 1535, Miles Coverdale produced the first complete English Bible, called the Coverdale Bible, in which he used Tyndale’s translation (wherever it was available).

This Bible received the approval of King Henry VIII.

In 1537, Matthew’s Bible, a revision of the Tyndale and Coverdale Bibles, appeared in England.

The translation was named for Thomas Matthew; this name was a pseudonym for John Rogers, a Tyndale disciple.

Despite this subterfuge, Rogers was burned at the stake.

Soon thereafter, the Great Bible appeared—named for its size—which was to be placed on every church lectern in England.

It combined Tyndale, Coverdale, and Matthew’s text, and was itself revised several times.With all these Bibles available, the debate quickly changed from whether or not there should be a vernacular translation to what sort of vernacular version was best.

Tyndale’s translation decisively set the terms for English-language Bibles until the present.Controversial IssuesTyndale’s translation also introduced two issues that became increasingly controversial throughout the remainder of the 16th and the 17th centuries.

He used terms like “congregation” for “church,” and “senior” or “elder” for “priest,” to describe biblical institutions.

His opponents viewed this usage as more than a linguistic choice; conservative English Catholics viewed these choices as attacks on established norms of ecclesiastical organization and governance.Tyndale also frequently used marginal notes to comment on how the biblical text related to contemporary life.

Later translators adopted this practice, but used the marginal notes to castigate others’ beliefs and practices.

For example, Protestants’ marginal notes could adopt a stridently anti-Catholic tone; Puritans, who were critical of monarchies, added marginal notes whenever the biblical text allowed for negative observations about the royalty.

Examples of marginal notes include:• Tyndale glossed Num 23:8, which states, “How shall I curse whom God curseth not,” with this remark: “The pope can tell how.”•

To provide a contemporary reference to “the hire of an whore” and “the price of a dog” (Deut 23:18), Tyndale offers: “The pope will take tribute of them yet, and bishops and abbots desire no better tenants.”•

The Geneva Bible characterizes “the king” of Dan 11:36 as “a tyrant” whose days are numbered.

Like the Pharaoh of the exodus, he is “a tyrant.”

The person writing the note may have had several 16th or 17th century English monarchs in mind.King James IThese same kinds of issues characterized the next two major Bible translations into English:• The Geneva Bible for the general populace• The Bishop’s Bible, which was used in churchesWhen King James I assembled the bishops and church deans at Hampton Court in 1604, he displaced these two versions.

At that time, the Geneva Bible was tremendously popular among lay folk, although King James described it as “the worst” English translation.

He was especially upset by the tone and substance of many of its antimonarchic marginal notes.The production of Bible translations at this period was a political, as well as theological and literary, enterprise.

James I himself convened these meetings, prepared the guidelines, chose the personnel, oversaw the process, and gave final approval (ultimately designated authorization) to the version later named for him.

He also determined that marginal notes would be minimal in number and muted in controversy.

He determined that the King James Version would be primarily a revision of the Bishop’s Bible (which relied heavily on Tyndale) and would be acceptable to both Anglicans (high church) and Puritans (low church).The translators themselves, six committees in all (three for the Old Testament, two for the New, and one for the Apocrypha), were left to carry out the translation.

Extensive committee notes and biographical and autobiographical accounts of many of these individuals provide insights into the procedures these translators followed.

These sources also provide insights into the education, religious leanings, and temperament of many of the individual translators.

Careful textual comparisons reveal that these translators were indebted to previous or contemporary sources—predominately Tyndale, whose translation was used 83 percent of the time.

Such famous lines as “In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1), “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3) and “In the Beginning God created the Word” (John 1:1) are attributed to Tyndale.However, the KJV team borrowed from numerous other sources, including Catholic and Jewish ones.

While no Jews served as KJV translators, many of the Old Testament translators (Lancelot Andrewes, Edward Lively, John Richardson, John Harding, and John Rainolds) were deeply steeped in both the Hebrew language and the exegetical traditions of Judaism.

The KJV teams charged with preparing the Old Testament translation adopted “Jewish” readings already incorporated into earlier English-language versions, and sought out others on their own.

They relied heavily on the writings of the 12th-century Jewish exegete and grammarian David Kimchi, also known as Radak.

An analysis of the first 15 chapters of the book of Isaiah in KJV reveals a high number of English renderings that reflect Kimchi’s interpretations, including:• “the chains” (Isa 3:19)• “and their honourable men are famished” (Isa 5:13)• “they shall lay their hands upon Edom and Moab” (Isa 11:14)• “the golden city” (Isa 14:4).Theological considerations, however, could prove more powerful than Kimchi: Isa 7:14 begins: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive,” and not, “a young woman shall give birth,” as Kimchi had it.Max L. Margolis writes: “[KJV] has an inimitable style and rhythm; the coloring of the original is not obliterated.

What imparts to the English Bible its beauty, aye, its simplicity, comes from the [Hebrew] original.”

It is this beauty and simplicity that has accorded to the KJV a central place among English-language Bibles and among major works of English literature in general.The first publication of the completed KJV in 1611.

However, reprintings and subsequent editions of the KJV frequently introduced new errors even as they sought to correct old mistakes.

For example, the KJV edition of 1631 earned the nickname “The Wicked Bible” because it omitted the word “not” in the commandment prohibiting adultery.

Accidental mistakes of this sort resulted from the fact that printers lacked sufficient type to set an entire volume, so that they constantly needed to reset pages.

Because of this, highly publicized errors were committed.Moreover, the tentativeness and modesty of the KJV translators themselves slowly yielded to dogmatic views about the authority of their text; this process was accelerated when the practice was abandoned of printing the translators’ own introduction.

In the Introduction, for example, the translators state forthrightly, “Truly we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one.”

Elsewhere, they note they have “avoid the scrupulosity of the Puritans [as also] we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists.”

Moreover, they acknowledge their dependence on the work of myriad predecessors.Derivative VersionsVersions of the Bible, like groups of humans, can have family trees.

The KJV itself has many descendants.