What Bible translations exist. Translations. Revision of Luther's Bible

From a translator into Russian Although Lama Zopa himself continues to postpone his visit to this country (and what else to call what is left of the USSR?), His American students have already been here: in the spring of 1993 - Ven. Thubten Tsultim (George Churinoff), and a year later - Ven. Thubten Chodron

17. Do you need different translations of the Bible into one language? “In our translation, this passage of the Bible is interpreted as follows ...” - you can hear on the street or on the Internet from preachers of one or another exotic faith. "No, in the canonical translation everything sounds completely different", - strictly

219. A humble review of yourself. Russian Bible Translation Project. Disadvantages of Spiritual Literature. Divine Mercy, be with you! I'm sorry! I should have written to you long ago; but postponed everything from the post office - and postponed it until this time. Thank you for your patience with my malfunction. Have

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BIBLE(from the Greek. biblia, lit. - books), a collection of ancient texts, canonized in Judaism and Christianity as Holy Scripture. The first part is recognized by both Judaism and Christianity and is called the Old Testament, the other part was called the New Testament, it was added by Christians and is recognized only by them. These terms are generated by the Christian tradition, according to which the covenant (agreement, union), concluded by God with the Jewish people through Moses, was replaced thanks to the appearance of Jesus Christ by the New Testament, already concluded with all nations.

The books of the Old Testament are written in Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew); some books contain fragments in Aramaic, the everyday language of Jews after the 4th century. BC. Jewish and Christian traditions associate the writing of Old Testament books with the names of Jewish prophets and kings, including Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon. By now, however, it is known that many books in their current form appeared rather late and are a reworking of documents and legends of earlier eras. In particular, some fragments of the book of Genesis date back to the 10th century. BC, but the book acquired its modern form, probably not earlier than the 5th century. BC.

OLD TESTAMENT

CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The collection of the books of Holy Scripture constitutes the biblical canon. The composition and sequence of books in the Jewish and Christian biblical canons are different. These differences go back to two biblical canons of the pre-Rabbinic Jewish tradition: Palestinian, represented by the Masoretic Hebrew Bible, and Alexandrian, represented by the Greek Septuagint, the latter being fully known only from Christian sources. The Masoretic text is accepted in modern Judaism, while the Septuagint has become the authoritative source of the biblical text for many Christian churches. At the same time, among the Christian confessions there is no consensus about the biblical canon, therefore it is legitimate to talk about the Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and other Bibles. There are elements common to all biblical traditions: the books included in the Palestinian canon are included in all Bibles, while the Pentateuch always comes first and is characterized by the identical order of the books. The differences relate to the rest of the Old Testament: they can be related to the number of books, the order in which they follow, the volume of certain books, their title; there may be discrepancies in the division into books and chapters, as well as numerous textual discrepancies; the status of the biblical books may not be the same.

In the Protestant Bible, the number of Old Testament books is the same as in the Hebrew Bible. In addition, the Orthodox and Catholic Bibles include books and fragments, either originally written in Greek, or that have come down to us only as part of the Septuagint (although in recent times Jewish and Aramaic originals of some of them have been found): the books of Tobit, Judith , Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, 2nd and 3rd Ezra, Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch and 3 Maccabees; Prayer of Manasseh at the end of 2 Chronicles, some parts of the Book of Esther, a psalm placed after the 150th, and three fragments from the Book of Daniel (the song of the Babylonian youths - 3. 24-90; the story of Susanna - Dan 13; the story of Vile and the dragon - Dan 14).

Books or parts of them that are absent in the Hebrew Bible in Christian Churches can have different status: either they are recognized on a par with canonical books (as in the Ethiopian Bible), or completely rejected (this is the case in Protestantism, where such books are called apocrypha and are not included in the number biblical books). In the Catholic and Orthodox Bible, these books are present, but the attitude towards them is somewhat different. In the Catholic Church, they were called "Deuterocanonical"; at the Council of Trent (1546) they were informed of the status of the canonical books (the so-called "second canon"). The Orthodox Church recognizes books that are not included in the Palestinian canon as edifying and useful for reading; there is no uniformity in their naming: the terms “second canonical” (like among Catholics), “non-canonical” or “anaginosomene” (that is, recommended for reading) can be used. At the same time, the most important criterion for the canonicity of a particular book in the Orthodox Church is its use in worship. From this point of view, the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon or the “non-canonical” parts of the Book of Daniel cannot be considered “non-canonical”.

The position of the early Christian church fathers ( see also FATHERS OF THE CHURCH) regarding non-canonical books was not unanimous: some accepted the Palestinian canon, others followed the more extensive Alexandrian canon, recognizing Greek books that did not have a Hebrew original. Lists of canonical books were considered at local councils. For example, the Council of Laodicea (340) recognized only the books of the Palestinian canon; The 3rd Carthage Council (397), on the contrary, equated the status of non-canonical books with the status of canonical ones. The Council of Trull (691–692) confirmed the apostolic and conciliar definitions on this issue. However, at the same time, provisions were adopted that partly contradicted each other. Namely, the rule of the Laodicean Council and the 85th apostolic rule distinguish between canonical and non-canonical books, while the 37th rule of the 3rd Carthage Council does not specifically specify the differences between them. In subsequent eras, attempts were made repeatedly to eliminate the incongruities that had arisen.

This problem was again actualized in the 17th century, during discussions between Protestant and Catholic theologians. The question of the canon was also raised in the Orthodox confessions of faith, created following the example of Protestants and Catholics. In the 18th century. both in the Russian and in the Greek Churches there were many supporters of the recognition of only a limited canon, but at present the majority of theologians are in favor of a long canon.

The canon of the Catholic Bible was finally fixed at the Council of Trent (1546): having confirmed the decisions of the Ipponian (393) and 4th Carthaginian (401) Councils, he gave the status of canonical to all the books included in Vulgate... The motive for such a decision was the fact that the Old Testament books, which did not have a Hebrew original, have long been placed in biblical collections along with canonical ones.

On the contrary, Protestants limited the Old Testament to the Palestinian canon, while maintaining the order of the books presented in the Vulgate. Modern Protestant editions of the Bible sometimes include Deuterocanonical books as an appendix under the name of "Apocrypha."

Hebrew Bible.

The Palestinian canon, which was later consolidated in rabbinic Judaism, includes 39 books (22 according to Hebrew), which are divided into 3 sections: Torah (Law), Neviim (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Scriptures); from the first letters of the names of these sections, the Hebrew name of the Old Testament - Tanakh is formed.

The Torah consists of the Pentateuch of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The last 3 books are law positive, i.e. represent the Law given by God through Moses to the Jewish people.

Neviim - the writings of the prophets; includes the elder prophets: the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel (1 and 2 Kings) and Kings (1 and 2 Kings), containing the religious history of the Jewish people from the settlement of Palestine after the Exodus from Egypt, and the younger prophets containing actually prophetic books: 3 great prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and 12 small ones - Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Ketuvim - other books: Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations of Jeremiah and Esther. The Scriptures also include the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, 1 Ezra, Nehemiah and the Chronicle (1 and 2 Chronicles).

The division of the Bible in the Jewish tradition into 3 parts reflects the main stages of the formation of the biblical canon. The Pentateuch appears before the others. The beginning of its formation can be considered a find in 622 BC. "The Book of the Law" and its public reading under King Josiah (2 Kings 22). The next section of the Jewish canon, Neviim, is first mentioned along with the Law only in the preface to the Book of the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach (132 BC), but its formation is attributed to an earlier period - the era after the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity, when all the available books of the Holy Scriptures were collected and edited under the guidance of the priest Ezra (mid-5th century BC). The last section of Scripture (Ketuvim) is formed by the end of the 1st century. AD For early Judaism, the main feature of canonicity was the supposed belonging of books to the time of the prophets. The notion that Ezra was the last prophet defined the boundaries of the canon in the Ketuvim section and the rejection of many of the writings of the Hellenistic period.

The biblical text assigns the writing of the Pentateuch to the prophet Moses (Deut 31.8); the Book of Job is also attributed to him in the Jewish and early Christian traditions. According to biblical chronology, the life of Moses falls on the 15th century. BC. (cf. 3 Kings 6.1). The scientific tradition usually dates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt (events described in the 2nd book of the Pentateuch) to the 13th century. BC. As a result of this discrepancy and as a result of studying the text of the Pentateuch in critical biblical studies in the 18-19th centuries. the so-called "documentary hypothesis" was created, according to which the Pentateuch arose as a result of the gradual unification of various sources: the Yahvist, created in Judea c. 950-930 BC, an Elohist, reflecting the northern tradition of the Levites after 922, the priestly code that developed in Judea after the fall of Israel (722-587) or even after the return from Babylonian captivity (538), and the so-called Deuteronomist, who arose in the era of King Josiah (640-609). Opponents of this hypothesis, without rejecting it as a whole, emphasized the content and stylistic unity of the entire historical narrative from Genesis to 4 Kings, and argued that these books were collected on the basis of a number of sources by one or more editors belonging to the same circle.

The activity of the prophets from Amos to Malachi dates back to the 8th and 5th centuries. BC. Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Book of Proverbs, Psalms are traditionally dated to the lifetime of their authors, Kings David and Solomon, i.e. 10 c. BC.; critical science is inclined to attribute only separate parts of them to this time. Other books in the Scripture section also refer to the period after the Babylonian captivity.

Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament.

1. The oldest manuscripts.

The oldest surviving manuscripts of the biblical text are small silver scrolls containing a fragment of the book of Numbers (Numbers 6. 24-26) - the Aaronic blessing. They were found in Jerusalem in 1979 and date back to the 7th and 6th centuries. BC. The text of these scrolls is somewhat different from the generally accepted one. They are believed to have served as amulets. 2nd - 1st centuries BC. The Nash papyrus is dated (containing the text of the 10 commandments and one of the most important liturgical texts in Judaism "Listen, Israel ..."), as well as most of the Qumran manuscripts found in 1947 and subsequent years (their publication lasted half a century and ended only in 2003). In Qumran and in other places in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, about 190 scrolls were found, they are fragments of the Old Testament books (only one scroll - the Book of Isaiah - has been completely preserved) ( see also DEAD SEA SCROLLS). Most of the scrolls with fragments of the Book of Psalms (36), Deuteronomy (29) and Isaiah (21), worse are the Books of Ezra and Chronicles (1 scroll each); the Book of Esther is missing. In addition, among the Qumran manuscripts there are fragments of almost all non-canonical books (except for 1 Makk) that were not included in the Jewish canon, but included in the canon of the Septuagint, as well as apocrypha (Books of Jubilees, Enoch, Testament of Levi, etc.). One of the scrolls contains a fragment of the original Hebrew of the Book of Jesus, the son of Sirakhov, previously known only in Greek translation and in later fragments found in the Cairo geniza (a special dungeon for storing sacred objects). Most of the Dead Sea manuscripts have readings that differ from the Masoretic text. Before the discoveries at Qumran, it was believed that there were 3 types of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament: the protographer of the Septuagint, the Masoretic and the Samaritan. Analysis of the Dead Sea manuscripts makes it possible to identify at least 5 types of text. Probably up to the 2nd century. AD the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was not stable, and only as a result of the philological activity of scholars-rabbis, a variant was formed that formed the basis of the Masoretic text, which was recognized in most of the Jewish world.

9 or 8 c. The fragments of the books of the Hebrew Bible, discovered in Cairo at the end of the 19th century, are dated to the AD, they contain a text that is already very close to the Masoretic. In some of the manuscripts there are Masoretic vocalization marks, all 3 vocalization systems of the consonant text are presented: Palestinian, Babylonian and Tiberian. Some books are already in the form of a codex, not a scroll.

2. The activity of the Masoretes, the vocalization of the consonant text, the Masoret, the signs of cantillation.

From about the 6th century. AD the philological school of Masoretes begins to operate (from the Hebrew word masorah - "tradition, tradition" (reading and rewriting the biblical text)), which replaced the school of scribes (Hebrew Sopherim) and existed until the 10th century. Her task was to develop a stable text of the Holy Scriptures. Rigorous editing was carried out; old texts that did not meet the requirements of stability were withdrawn from circulation (at the same time, as sacred objects, they were not destroyed, but were buried by the genizah). The Masorets also read out the text, tk. up to 6 c. Hebrew writing was consonant (that is, the manuscripts did not have signs for writing vowels), and the tradition of reading the text of the Holy Scripture was transmitted orally. This oral tradition, in addition to vocalization, also included the rules of intonation (cantillation) and the division of the text into verses, semi-verses, etc. Obviously, the need to fix the oral tradition in order to eliminate doubts about the correct pronunciation of the text, its understanding and interpretation existed for a long time, but only in the 6-7 centuries. AD the first vowel diacritics appeared, which were later organized into a system. The first system of vows was the Palestinian (or South Palestinian); Subsequently, the Masoretes of Tiberias in Palestine developed the Tiberian (subscript) vowel system, and in Yemen, the superscript system, which was called Babylonian. From the 10th century. the Tiberias system of vowel becomes dominant, and subsequently retains a dominant position in the Jewish communities of Europe and other countries (only in Yemen the Babylonian tradition was preserved). The development of the Tiberias system of vocalizations is associated with the activities of two families (or schools) of Masoretes (9th – early 10th centuries AD): Bnei Asher and Bnei Naftali. From about the 12th century. the ben Asher school system became standard. It is believed that it is most accurately reflected in the Aleppo Codex. The tasks of the Masoretes also included the storage and augmentation of knowledge about the consonant composition of the text, the rules for writing it, about the discrepancies in the existing manuscripts, etc., therefore, in the manuscripts processed by the Masoretes, there are special notes - "Masorah". There are minor masora - marks on the margins of manuscripts, major masora - under the text, and final - at the end of each book; broadly, the term "macopa" also includes vowel marks and cantillation marks.

As a result of the activities of the Masoretes, incorrect readings in the biblical text were revealed; however, the corrected version was not entered into the manuscripts, but passed on orally. When reading the biblical text in the synagogue, the incorrect reading (ketiv - “what is written”) was replaced with the correct one (kere - “what is read”). For example, in the manuscript of Job 13: 5 it reads: “Behold, He is killing me, and I have no hope,” but the Masoretes, instead of “no,” ordered to read “in him,” therefore it turns out: “Behold, He is killing me, but in Him my hope. " The handwritten Torah scrolls kept in synagogues and used for liturgical reading were never supplied with vowels and cantillation signs.

3. The most important medieval manuscripts.

At the moment, more than 6 thousand Hebrew medieval manuscripts are known, about half of them date back to 1540; 6 of them date back to the 10th century, 8th to 11th century, 22nd to 12th century; in addition, there are 6 fragments dating back to 1200 AD. Some of the manuscripts contain the entire text of the Hebrew Bible, but there are also separate manuscripts of the Pentateuch, the Prophets. Some manuscripts contain only one book. Separate manuscripts include, along with the Hebrew text, a translation into Aramaic (the so-called Targum) or into Arabic, sometimes placed after each (for the Torah) or every three (for the Prophets) verses, so that the texts in 2 languages ​​replace each other.

One of the most authoritative medieval manuscripts is the Aleppo Codex, created around 925. In the Middle Ages, this manuscript served as a model for correcting books, is currently used in the preparation of modern scientific publications, in particular, the text of the Aleppo Codex is the basis of a new multivolume critical edition of the Old Testament , undertaken at the University of Jerusalem in Israel. The Aleppo Codex is a standard text with Tiberias vowel, vowel marks and cantillation marks were introduced by Aaron ben Asher, one of the founders of this vowel system. This codex contained the complete text of the Hebrew Bible, but as a result of a fire in 1948 in Aleppo, where the codex was kept at the time, significant portions at the beginning and end of the manuscript were lost. The extant text begins at Deut 28:16 and ends at Canto 3. 12. The manuscript is now kept in Jerusalem.

The oldest dated manuscript of the Hebrew Bible is the Leningrad Codex. The codex dates from 1009, its vocalization is close to the Aleppo codex. As well as the Aleppo Codex, the manuscript reliably conveys the Tiberian Masoretic tradition of signs for vowels and cantillation signs of ben Asher. The Leningrad Codex was used in the preparation of the 3rd edition of Biblia Hebraica (Stuttg., 1929–1937), as well as all issues of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), where the manuscript was reproduced practically unchanged.

Editions of the Hebrew text.

The Hebrew Bible was published in its entirety in Soncino (Italy) in 1488 (a one-volume edition with a revised text, without targum and commentaries).

On the initiative of Pope Leo X, a polyglot (Hebrew, Greek, Latin) was created in 1514-1517. It was published in 1522 in the Spanish city of Alcala and named, after the Roman name of this city Complutum, the Complutenian polyglot. When preparing the text, ancient manuscripts and previous editions were taken into account.

In 1515, Daniel van Bomberg, a Christian merchant from Antwerp, founded a Jewish printing house in Venice and, together with the Augustinian monk Felix Pratensis, published in 1516-1517 the "Rabbinical Bible" - an edition of the Old Testament that united the biblical text itself (based on the study of a large number of manuscripts). targum, masoru and rabbinic commentaries.

Jacob ben Chaim ben Adoniyahu, a Jewish scholar from Tunisia, prepared for the Bomberg printing house the 2nd edition of the "Rabbinic Bible" (1524-1525), which was supplied with a small and large Masorah. Applying the critical methods of his era, he used many handwritten sources containing Masora, as well as Masoretic books. The Second Rabbinical Bible, which was based on the tradition of ben Asher, enjoyed particular authority for several centuries.

The first experience of the scientific publication of the Hebrew Bible belongs to Z. Beru. In separate volumes, together with the German biblical scholar Franz Delitzsch, he published in Leipzig most of the Hebrews. Bible (1869-1894). Ber made an attempt to reconstruct the original texts of Ben Asher in accordance with the Masorah. However, he did not have the ancient manuscripts at his disposal, so he edited the Masoretic books on the basis of the principles adopted in the manuscripts of a later origin.

As the main material for the reconstruction of the original text, the Masorer was also used by K.D. Ginzburg. In 1880-1905 he published 4 volumes of Masors. He used 73 manuscripts and some older editions.

In 1906, in Leipzig, the German Protestant biblical scholar R. Kittel published a biblical text based on the 2nd Rabbinical Bible. The publisher provided him with a critical apparatus based not only on Hebrew manuscripts, but also on ancient targums; the results of textual and linguistic research were also taken into account. The edition contains a large number of conjunctions. In 1913 (Leipzig) and 1929-1937. (Stuttgart) Kittel's Bible has been reprinted. The peculiarity of the Stuttgart edition is that it was based on the Leningrad Code, which is one of the most authoritative sources of the Hebrew text. Discrepancies between the 2nd Rabbinical Bible and the main text of this edition are recorded; for the first time, the variants that are present in the manuscripts with the Babylonian vowel are taken into account. The 4th edition of Kittel's Bible (Stuttgart, 1954) reflects the readings of the Qumran manuscripts for Isaiah and Habakkuk. This edition is abbreviated as BH (Biblia Hebraica); continuation of this tradition is BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), published by W. Rudolph and K. Elliger in 1967-1977; it is the most authoritative and sought-after source for textual research and academic work. At present (early 21st century) a new edition of the BHS is being prepared, which will include the data of the Masors and the Qumran scrolls. On the initiative of M. Goshen-Gotstein (1925–1991), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem began work in 1975 to create a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible based on the Aleppo Code.

Septuagint.

The oldest translation of the Old Testament into Greek is called the Septuagint, or the Translation of the Seventy (abbreviated LXX), according to the number of 72 interpreters who, according to legend, in 285–247 BC. at the request of the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Torah was translated into Greek; the composition of the Septuagint reflects the Alexandrian canon of the Bible. Later, between 285 and 150 BC, among the Alexandrian Jews, for whom Greek was already native, a translation of the rest of the Holy Scriptures was made, including books and fragments that were absent in the Palestinian canon ( cm... Canon of the Old Testament).

Despite the fact that the translation, unlike the original, did not have the status of a sacred text in the minds of the Jews, the Septuagint became widespread in the Jewish diaspora of the Greco-Roman oecumene; when in the first centuries A.D. Christianity spreads in the Roman Empire, it accepts the Septuagint as the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament; at the same time, by the time of the emergence of Christianity (since the canonization of the Ketuvim section was not completed), the biblical canon was still open.

The new theological interpretation of the Old Testament determined a different, in comparison with the Jewish tradition, the distribution of books in the Christian Septuagint into sections. So, the Pentateuch was now perceived primarily as a story about the first stages of the history of mankind and the chosen people (therefore, it looks natural to converge with historical books). The prophetic books proper (called the senior prophets in the Hebrew Bible) were allocated in a special section; as containing messianic, i.e. relating to Jesus Christ, the prophecies, they were placed at the end of the body. The book of Daniel, which in the Jewish tradition belonged to the Ketuwim section, was also included in the number of prophetic ones, since and it contains meaningful prophecies about Christ. The books of the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Maccabees are absent in the Palestinian canon; their authority for Christianity is explained by the fact that from the entire Old Testament it is in these books that the teaching about the Holy Spirit and the immortality of the soul is most fully revealed.

Depending on the content, the books of the Old Testament in the Christian tradition are divided into the following three groups:

1) law-positive and historical:

a) law-positive - this is the Pentateuch, which tells about the creation of the world and man, about the first pages of the history of mankind, about the Old Testament patriarchs, about the prophet and legislator Moses, who brought the people of Israel out of Egyptian slavery, about the forty-year wanderings of the Jews in the desert; The Pentateuch contains an exposition of religious, moral and legal laws;

b) historical books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-4 Kings, 1, 2 Chronicles, 1 Ezra, Nehemiah, as well as not included in the Palestinian canon 2 Ezra, 1-3 Maccabees and 3 Ezra (Maccabean books and 3 Ezra as referring to the later period of the Old Testament history are located in the Slavic-Russian Bible at the end of the corpus) - contain a story about the resettlement of the Israeli people to Canaan - the promised land, about wars with local peoples, about the time of the reign of military leaders (traditionally named judges) and about the establishment of a monarchical reign, about the rise and fall of the Israel (Northern) kingdom, about the prophets and kings of this period, about the collapse of the Northern kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem and the forced transfer of the Jews to Babylon;

2) teaching books are Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Esther, Tobit, the book of Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach; they were written by biblical sages and had the subject of various aspects of human life, manifestations of the human spirit, tried to solve the problems of the existence of evil and suffering, as well as the meaning of life.

3) prophetic books: 3 great (according to the volume of their books) prophet (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel), Daniel and 12 minor prophets, as well as the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the non-canonical Epistle of Jeremiah and the book of the prophet Baruch; these books contain the preaching of the Israelite prophets against the moral and religious distortion of the idea of ​​the Covenant of God with people and predicting the coming of the Kingdom of the Messiah.

Christianity attaches exceptional importance to the text of the Septuagint, since it is in it that the readings that underlie some of the dogmas are present (eg Isa. 7:14). The Orthodox Church accepts the Septuagint as an authentic text of the Old Testament, in contrast to the Masoretic text, in comparison with which in many places significant differences are revealed. Christian scholars who belonged to the Alexandrian and Antiochian theological schools, subjected in 3 - early. 4 c. the text of the Septuagint in a number of revisions, which resulted in the emergence of 3 main editions of the translation of the Seventy: Origen, Lucian (the most widespread) and Isikhiev.

Manuscripts of the Septuagint.

To date, more than 2 thousand fragments and copies of the Septuagint are known, dating from the 2nd century. BC. - 16th century AD (excluding lectionaries and patristic quotations from the Old Testament books). The handwritten tradition of the Psalter is most fully represented: more than 750 copies of this book have come down to us.

Most of the Old Testament manuscripts initially included only one or a few books. Known collections of biblical books of the following type: 1) the Pentateuch; 2) the Eight Books (Genesis - Ruth); 3) historical books (1 Kings - 2 Ezra, Esther, Judith and Tobit); 4) books attributed to Solomon (Proverbs, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs); 5) poetry books; 6) 12 minor prophets; 7) 4 books of great prophets. Various groups could unite, for example, all prophetic books and Genesis - Tobit or prophetic and poetic books. The Septuagint has been edited many times, which complicates the reconstruction of its original text.

Based on the analysis of the structural and functional status of manuscripts, their handwriting and the material on which they are written, several types of handwritten sources are distinguished:

1. Papyri. This handwritten type is distinguished on the basis of the writing material - sheets of processed reed. The oldest surviving fragments are written on papyrus. In papyrus ser. 2 c. BC. contains the earliest extant Greek biblical text. Currently, more than 360 papyri are known, and their number is constantly growing.

2. Uncials. They are distinguished by the nature of the writing and writing material. The material for the uncial manuscripts was parchment, the text is written in large, "capital" letters, there are no accents or aspirations, the number of abbreviations is small; the form of the manuscript is a code. The most important uncials, containing an almost complete text of the Old Testament, are the Vatican (4th century), Sinai (4th century) and Alexandrian (5th century) codices.

3. Minuscules. They are allocated on the basis of italic writing, which arose in the 9th century. For manuscripts of this type, abbreviations are characteristic, as well as continuous spellings of letters (ligatures), which speed up copying and give savings in writing material, which served as parchment, bombicin and from the 12th century. paper. Minuscules, despite their late origin, often give very ancient readings. For example, in one of the minuscules of the 10th century. preserved translation of the Book of the Prophet Daniel in the version of the Septuagint (while all other manuscripts contain this book in the translation of Theodotion).

4. Lectionaries (collections of fragments of Old Testament books read during services) are mostly dated after the 10th – 11th centuries. and usually contain Lucian's edition. About 150 sources are known.

Editions of the Septuagint.

The Greek Old Testament was first fully printed as part of the Complutenian polyglot (1514-1517); When preparing the Old Testament text, 2 currently identified minuscules from the Vatican Library and, probably, several manuscripts that were in Spain at that time were taken as a basis. One of the used Vatican manuscripts contains the text in Antioch edition.

The Aldin Bible (Aldina, after the owner of the publishing house Alda Manucius) was printed in Venice in 1518-1519. It is possible that during its preparation some Venetian manuscripts were used, now stored in the National Library of St. Mark in Venice.

Among the first printed editions of the Septuagint, the most prestigious was the so-called Sistine Bible (Sixtina Romana), which was published in 1587 in Rome on the initiative of Pope Sixtus V. For the first time, the Vatican Codex, one of the best uncials, was taken as the basis of the text; the missing fragments were filled in with the text of other manuscripts. During the 17th and 19th centuries. more than 20 editions of the Bible were published, following the text of the Old Testament of the Sistine Bible.

Some publishers of the Septuagint as early as the 16th century. noted inconsistencies and suggested corrections. Meanwhile, the critical apparatus appeared only at the end of the 18th century; the merit of its creation belongs to the English scientists R. Holmes and P.J. Parsons, who in 1788-1827 published the five-volume Septuagint in Oxford. Its main text reproduces the Old Testament of the Sistine edition, and also takes into account readings of about 300 Greek manuscripts, evidence of ancient translations (Old Latin, Coptic, Arabic, Slavic, Armenian and Georgian) and biblical quotes in patristic writings. In addition, options for the printed editions of the Septuagint are given: the Complutenian polyglot, the Aldin Bible, etc.

K. Tischendorf in his editions (1850, 1856, 1860, 1869) gives a revised text of the Sistine edition, taking into account the readings of several uncial manuscripts.

The most widespread at present is the critical edition of the Septuagint, published by A. Ralphs in 1935. Ralphs attempted to reconstruct the original text of the Septuagint; for this reason, the text of this edition, unlike most of the previous ones, is eclectic.

Since 1931, a multivolume critical edition of the Septuagint has been published in Göttingen.

NEW TESTAMENT

The books that make up the New Testament tell about the life of Jesus Christ (his incarnation, teaching, miracles, suffering and death on the cross, about the resurrection from the dead and subsequent ascension to heaven), about the creation of the Christian church and the initial period of its existence, and also explain the teaching of Christ and reveal the secrets of the last destinies of the world. This collection of biblical books is called the "New Testament" because they contain the revelation of the conclusion of a new "covenant" (agreement, union) of God with man, realized through the appearance in the world, suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament consists of 27 books: the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John; Acts of the Apostles; Epistle of the Council of James, 2 Epistles of the Council of Peter, 3 of the Epistles of the Council of John, Epistle of the Council of Judas; Epistles of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, to the Corinthians (1 and 2), to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians (1 and 2), to Timothy (1 and 2), to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews ; Revelation of the Apostle John the Theologian.

By the nature of their content, the books of the New Testament are divided into 4 parts: 1) law-positive (these include 4 Gospels (from Greek letters. "Good" or "good news", in Russian it is usually translated as "gospel"), because they tell about the teachings of Jesus Christ); 2) the historical book of the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the history of the spread of the Christian faith by the apostles; 3) teaching (all the epistles of the apostles, containing their teachings and instructions to Christians); 4) a prophetic book, the Revelation (or Apocalypse) of John the Theologian, containing prophecies about the future destinies of the Church and the world. In the Orthodox liturgical tradition, the New Testament is divided into 2 parts: the Gospel and the Apostle, the first includes the narratives of 4 evangelists, and the second Acts and Epistles of the Apostles; outside this division is the Apocalypse, tk. not used in worship.

The exact dates of the creation of the books of the New Testament in scientific biblical studies have not been established and can hardly be established in the future. The first mentions of the New Testament texts and references to them are already found in some Christian writers of the 2nd century. The earliest of all, apparently, were written by the epistles of the apostles, as a necessary help in their missionary work. Thus, the epistles of the Apostle Paul date back to the period 49-60. The Epistles of the Council were written between approximately 50 (Epistle of the Apostle Jude) and 105 (Epistle of the Apostle John).

Since the first centuries of Christianity, Christian scholars and church fathers have been interested in the question of the origin and time of the writing of the Gospels. Early Christian writers unanimously acknowledge Matthew's Gospel as the first to be created. The second was the Gospel of Mark, which goes back to the sermon of the Apostle Peter, then the Gospel of Luke, behind which was the authority of the Apostle Paul. According to St. Augustine, each of the subsequent evangelists used the work of the previous authors. Archbishop Theophylact of Bulgaria (11th century), on the basis of the testimony of Eusebius of Caesarea (4th century), in the preface to the interpretation of the Gospels, gives information from oral traditions and early sources about the origin of the Gospels: Evangelist Matthew wrote the Gospel in Hebrew 8 years after the Ascension Lord's; Mark wrote the Gospel 10 years after the Ascension; Luke completed his work 15 years later, and John 32 years later.

However, Western biblical studies, based on the historical-critical method, revised the traditional point of view on the sequence of the creation of the canonical Gospels. The following solution to the synoptic problem was proposed (synoptic - similar in views, adhering to the same point of view; the first three Gospels are called synoptic): the Gospel of Mark was written first - on the eve of or immediately after the fall of Jerusalem (70); on this Gospel, as well as on the source of the logias (sayings) of Jesus that has not come down to us, denoted by Q (German Quelle - source), the longer Gospel of Matthew, as well as the Gospel of Luke, is based. This hypothesis, called the two-source hypothesis, has become widespread; its main provisions are often taken as an axiom. Meanwhile, to explain, for example, the differences between the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, it is necessary, following the logic of this hypothesis, to postulate a third source, which leads to an unjustified multiplication of entities.

In 1999, priest Leonid Grilikhes offered his own view on the problem of the correlation of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Taking into account the testimony of early Christian authors about the Jewish origin of the Gospel of Matthew, he reconstructed the Hebrew text of this Gospel; in addition, he substantiated the thesis that the Gospel of Mark was originally written in Aramaic. Comparison of the reconstructions of the two Gospels with each other and with the Greek text made it possible to conclude that the Gospel of Matthew is primacy. According to the concept of L. Griliches, this Gospel, in its early edition, was used (with certain changes) by the Apostle Peter in his preaching work. Peter himself spoke Aramaic, and his constant companion and assistant Mark translated his speech into Greek. Subsequently, Mark, with Peter's permission, recorded his sermon in Greek.

Apparently, the New Testament books, in particular the epistles, almost immediately after their appearance, begin to be combined into collections. The apostle Paul himself points out the general church significance of the epistles: “When this epistle is read by you, then order that it be read in the Laodicean church as well; but that which is from Laodicea, read you also ”(Col. 4:16). References, allusions and quotations from all New Testament books are already found in the writings of the Apostolic Men, which are, on average, no more than half a century from the time the canonical books were created. In the 2nd century. Christian apologists often cite New Testament books as authoritative sources. All 27 books that form the canon of the New Testament were accepted by the Christian Church from the very beginning (however, for quite a long time there was no consensus regarding the canonicity of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Revelation of John the Theologian). The New Testament canon in its current form was recorded in 360 at the local Laodicean Council and confirmed at the IV Ecumenical Council (451).

Manuscripts of the New Testament.

All surviving New Testament manuscripts are written in Greek. The handwritten tradition of the Greek New Testament is very rich, with more than 5,300 sources known. In 1908 K.R. Gregory proposed the first classification of all known manuscripts, and from 1963 K.Aland continued to work on their further description. 115 papyri, 309 uncials, 2862 minuscules and 2412 lectionaries were allocated. These figures represent the results of the cathologization of both complete manuscripts and individual fragments found by C.R. Gregory and C.Aland in various manuscript repositories and libraries, while the exact number of New Testament manuscripts is apparently less, since some storage units may be parts of one manuscript. The largest number of manuscripts has been preserved in the Athonite and Sinai monasteries. Basically, these are minuscule manuscripts of the 2nd millennium. The libraries of Athens, Paris, Rome, London, St. Petersburg, Oxford, Jerusalem and some others also own large collections of New Testament manuscripts.

1. Papyri were discovered during excavations in Egypt and introduced into scientific circulation relatively recently (in the Gregory catalog, published in 1908, there are only 14 of them). Papyri are the earliest sources of the New Testament text. So, papyrus 52, containing a fragment from John. 18 is only three to four decades away from the estimated time of creation of the text. In general, the papyri date back to the 2nd - 7th centuries (of which more than 40 - 2nd - early 4th centuries), and provide grounds for reconstructing the state of the New Testament text in the 3rd century. All the surviving manuscripts are fragments of the New Testament, but taken together they form the entire New Testament (with the exception of 1 and 2 Timothy).

Only four papyri are scrolls, the rest are fragments of codices, which suggests that the codex is from the very beginning the dominant form of existence of the New Testament text. All papyri are written in statutory letter. The text of the papyri is unstable, contains numerous variants, which, most likely, reflects the birth of tradition at the initial stage of the spread of Christianity.

2. Uncial manuscripts are codes written on parchment in statutory (uncial) handwriting. Most of them date back to the 4th to 10th centuries. (2 codes date from an earlier period). The parchment uncial code becomes the official form of the text after the Edict of Milan 313, but the beginning of the spread of this type of manuscript dates back to the 2nd century. Unlike papyrus, parchment was used for writing from 2 sides, which made the production of the book cheaper; the code is more convenient than a scroll when searching for the right places in the text and during storage. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, the emperor Constantine ordered him to make 50 complete copies of the Bible, which may be the reason for the appearance in this era of codes such as the Vatican, Sinai and Alexandria, which were not intended for liturgical use.

Before the introduction of papyri into scientific circulation, the uncials were considered the most ancient sources of the New Testament text, they are based on critical editions (K.K. Lokhman, Tischendorf and Hort-Westcott), as well as textological concepts of the New Testament (in particular, the theory of Hort, according to which the main text groups (neutral, Alexandrian, western and Syrian) are identified respectively with the Vatican, Ephraim and Royal, Beza and Alexandrian codes.The Alexandrian code was the first to attract the attention of scholars to uncial manuscripts, variations from it are included in Walton's polyglot (1657).

The full text of the New Testament has survived only in 5 manuscripts, the Gospel contains 9 manuscripts, 7 - Acts of the Apostles, 7 - Epistles of the Apostle Paul, 9 - Epistles and 4 - Apocalypse, the rest of the manuscripts are fragments.

3. Minuscule manuscripts date back to the 9th – 17th centuries. They are examples of the Byzantine text, which was in church use at least from the 4th century.

A group of minuscule manuscripts of the 11th-15th centuries, named by the scientists H. Ferrar, F. Scrivener, D.R. Harris and C. Lake "family 13" (later Lake combined 4 more manuscripts of the 12-14 centuries into "family 1") , contain information about the early stages of the development of the text, which are absent in sources of a different kind. For the most part, the manuscripts of both "families" were created in Orthodox monasteries in Italy. They are combined into the Caesarean type of text, which is related to the edition of Origen, which he developed in Palestinian Caesarea.

Most of the minuscules represent separately the text of the Gospel or the Apostle, only 57 manuscripts contain the entire New Testament.

Minuscule manuscripts come to the attention of scholars earlier than other types of manuscripts. They are based on the editions of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1516) and the Complutenian Polyglot (1514-1517), as well as many editions and studies of the text of the New Testament in the 17th and 18th centuries.

4. The lectionaries date back to the 8th – 16th centuries, but there are also several earlier copies. They are collections of individual readings from the Gospel and the Apostle, intended for reading during worship, which determines their composition and structure (in the Russian tradition, the term "aprakos" is used to denote this type of text). Lectionaries can be written in uncial and minuscule writing on parchment or paper. The text of the lectionaries goes back to the Caesarean edition and is very stable.

Lectionary manuscripts were almost never used in the editions of the New Testament due to the secondary nature of their text in relation to the complete New Testament manuscripts. But in 1904, on behalf of the Greek Orthodox Church, V. Anthonyadis published the text of the New Testament based on the lectionary. In 1908, the first catalog of lectionaries, compiled by Gregory, appears. The work of E.C. Colwell (1933) is devoted to the study of lectionaries. Several lectionaries have entered the critical apparatus of Nestlé-Aland 27 and GNT 4.

Editions of the Greek New Testament.

For the first time, the original text of the New Testament books was published as part of the Complutenian polyglot. This edition was prepared in 1514-1517, but it became available to the reader only in 1522. But already in 1516 in Basel, in the Frobenius publishing house, an edition of the New Testament of Erasmus of Rotterdam, based on four manuscripts of the 12-13 centuries, was published. with text of the Byzantine type; from 1518 the text of Erasmus was also published as part of the Aldin Bible. The text published by Erasmus of Rotterdam served as the basis for many subsequent publications. Elsevier Publishing House (Netherlands) carried out 7 editions; in the preface to the 2nd (1633) edition, the reader was informed: nunc habes textum, ab omnibus receptum - "now you have a text accepted by all"; the Latin expression textus receptus ("accepted text") has since established itself as a name for the Greek New Testament text, first published by Erasmus and with some corrections reprinted for over a century.

Two editions of K. Lachman (Berlin, 1831, 1842-1850) reflected a new approach to New Testament textual criticism. Lachman gave a reconstruction of the text of the late 4th century, based only on ancient sources, without using the textus receptus. In 1841-1872, K. Tischendorf prepared 8 editions of the New Testament. In the first three editions he adhered to Lachman's text, in the next four he abandoned it in favor of the textus receptus, but he based the latter (1869–1872) on the Code of Sinai, accompanying it with an extensive critical apparatus. This edition of Tischendorf had a decisive influence on the subsequent scientific publications of the Greek text of the New Testament.

BF Westcott and F. Hort developed in detail (1881–1882) a classification of Greek New Testament manuscripts into four types: neutral, Alexandrian, Western and Syrian (Byzantine); at the same time, the Byzantine type of text, together with the textus receptus ascending to it, was excluded from consideration as being dependent on three other types. The purpose of the publication is to reconstruct the original text, the role of which is played here by the Codex Sinai, accompanied by a compact critical apparatus and containing numerous corrections.

The reconstruction by Eberhard Nestlé (Stuttgart, 1898) is based on the last edition of Tischendorf, as well as on the editions of Hort-Westcott and Weymouth (London, 1886; 1892; 1905). If there were discrepancies in the source editions, E. Nestlé introduced into the main text the version that was supported by two of them, giving the reading of the 3rd in the apparatus. In 1904, by order of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Nestlé reprinted its edition. In 1901 he replaces Weymouth's text with B. Weiss's (1894-1900). This edition was reprinted for a quarter of a century with some amendments. Eberhard Nestlé's son, Erwin Nestlé, issued 13th to 20th editions in 1927–1950; editions from 21st to 25th (1952-1972) he carried out in cooperation with K.Aland. Based on the 1904 edition, D. Kilpatrick published the 2nd ed. In 1958. British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1955, in order to prepare a new edition, a special committee was formed by the United Bible Societies, which carried out 2 editions (1966, 1968) on the basis of earlier publications; however, there was no direct reference to handwritten sources. However, when preparing the third edition, the results of new checks of manuscripts were taken into account, including papyri, which were made by K. Aland for the 26th edition of Nestlé, as well as discrepancies in the Athonite lectionaries of the 9-11th centuries, identified by the Greek biblical scholar J. Karavidopoulos. Both editions, published in 1975 and 1979, contained the same text. The 26th edition of Nestlé was named Nestle-Aland 26 (NA 26). Both were reprinted in 1993 (the 4th edition of the United Bible Societies came out as Greek New Testament - GNT 4); at the same time, the main text did not undergo any changes; individual corrections were made to the critical apparatus.

In these editions, the main text is a reconstruction based on the Vatican Code. The accounting of the papyri of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which entered scientific circulation in the 1930s, made it possible to advance "into the depths of the centuries" by a century in comparison with the publication of Lachman. The critical apparatus NA 27 combines compactness and information content. It contains over 10,000 knots of variation, reflecting the evolution of the New Testament Greek text in the first millennium AD. The GNT 4 apparatus includes 1400 critical nodes.

ANCIENT BIBLE TRANSLATIONS

Aramaic Targums.

Translation (oral or written) of the Old Testament into Aramaic, performed in the Jewish environment, is called targum. (Originally this word in Hebrew and Aramaic simply meant "translation").

Oral targums appear to appear simultaneously with the emergence of the public reading of the Torah, which is usually associated with the renewal of the Covenant under the leadership of Ezra (about 450 BC). At this time, the everyday language of the Jews was Aramaic, and therefore there was a need for translation. However, even in translation, the text of the Pentateuch was not always clear enough, so the translation was provided with commentaries. Oral translation of the Bible also spread in connection with the appearance of synagogues (no later than the 3rd century BC), in which the Law and the Prophets are read every week. The oldest written targums are fragments of the books of Leviticus and Job, found in Qumran and dating back to the 2nd and 1st centuries. BC.

The targum does not give a literal translation, but a paraphrase, a commentary; it may contain various kinds of additions that are not directly related to a specific biblical text; however, from the 4th to 5th centuries. AD Targums appear that are limited to literal translation and contain practically no additions. Literal targums are characterized by the specifics of the translation: in some cases, proper names are rendered as common nouns; the syntax of the original is accurately reproduced, due to which the translation is obscured, etc. Thus, the Targum is not a full-fledged translation capable of replacing the original, but only reproduces and reflects certain features of the original text to one degree or another.

Ancient Greek.

The Septuagint is a collection of translations of the Old Testament into Greek made in the Hellenized Jewish environment in the 3rd century. BC NS. - 2 c. AD The Greek version of the Old Testament contains, in addition to the books of the Palestinian canon, 10 books that either did not survive in Hebrew, or were originally written in Greek, as well as lengthy additions to the Books of Esther and Daniel. (In the last two centuries, the Hebrew originals of the Wisdom Books of Jesus son of Sirach and Tobit have been found.)

The handwritten tradition of the Septuagint is presented as follows: c. 20 fragments of papyri of the 2nd century. BC NS. - 4 c. AD, several leather scrolls from Qumran, as well as about 2 thousand parchment and paper manuscripts of the 4th – 16th centuries, including the Vatican, Sinai and Alexandrian codices. The first editions of the Septuagint were the Compluten polyglot (1514-1517) and the Aldin Bible (1518).

The first translation of the Torah into Greek was made according to To the message of Aristeas, at the initiative of the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247) for the Library of Alexandria. In reality, this translation could have been carried out in the religious and legal interests of the Jewish synagogue in Alexandria, or as a targum for liturgical use. The first version is supported by the stability of the text of the Pentateuch, the Psalter and some other parts of the Greek Old Testament, in favor of the second - the existence of translation options for the Books of Judges, Esther and some others. text variability). Most of the Bible books were translated in Alexandria.

The translation was carried out by different persons, but, with the exception of the Pentateuch, in general it is extremely literal, up to the violation of the grammar of Greek. language. Only some books (for example, the Book of Proverbs of Solomon) are freely translated. The language of literally translated books is saturated with Semitisms in both vocabulary and grammar, while the original Greek texts included in the Septuagint (in particular the Maccabean books) are characterized by adherence to the Attic norm.

The text of the Septuagint has a large number of variants, which leads to the selection of its various editions; some of them can be interpreted as independent translations. There are 3 Jewish translations of the Christian era.

Akila's translation executed by about 125 Pontic Greek, Jewish proselytes. This translation, although literal, is grammatically correct.

Symmachus translation , made at the end of the 2nd century, is extremely attentive to the transmission of the Hebrew original, is distinguished by a good Greek language.

Translation of Theodotion also refers to the end of the 2nd century; it is based on a different text from the Septuagina from the one that has come down to us.

In addition, it should be mentioned Hexaply Origen (235-240), representing 6 texts of the Old Testament in parallel columns: the Hebrew text, the Hebrew text in Greek transcription, the Septuagint and the 3 above-mentioned translations; for individual books, 1 to 3 more columns have been added with translations currently unknown from other sources. Origen compared the translations with the Hebrew text, marking gaps and additions to determine the most accurate translation.

Due to the spread among Christian writers of the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the variability in the Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament increased. Thus, a special edition of the Septuagint arose, characterized by borrowings from the last 3.

The editions of the Antiochian presbyter Lucian and presbyter Hesychius are also distinguished, but information about these editions is insufficient.

The Septuagint and its processing are very important for the history of Greek. early versions of the Old Testament text; The Septuagint, in addition, was the basis for numerous Christ. translations made in antiquity and the Middle Ages .

Latin.

Old Latin translations.

Latin translations of biblical texts first appear at the end of the 2nd century. in North Africa. The Old Testament is translated from the Septuagint, re-edited from the Hebrew original. The New Testament also appears to have originally appeared in North Africa. Due to the lack of complete biblical texts in Latin, Christian preachers used collections of quotations from the Holy Scriptures, which led to the emergence of a significant number of textual variants. In the 4th century. in Italy and Spain new translations from Greek into Latin are being made.

Vulgate

(Latin Vulgata - simple, general, ordinary) - translation of the Bible into Latin, in the 80s of the 4th century. carried out by Jerome of Stridonsky (d. about 420) on behalf of Pope Damas I (366-384). The incentives for creating a new translation were: 1) the above-mentioned great variability of the available translation, 2) the lack of dogmatic authority in this translation, 3) the need for liturgical texts in Latin. At the first stage of his work (in Rome), Blessed Jerome corrected the Old Latin translation of the Gospel, relying on a Greek manuscript of the Byzantine type of text. Further in Bethlehem, he edits the translation of the Old Testament books. Based Hexapl Origen, he rules the Psalter (this edition becomes the standard liturgical text in Gaul). Then, using the same Greek. original, he rules the books of Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes and Chronicles. Using the translations of Aquila and Symmachus as an auxiliary source, he re-translates from Heb. The Psalter and other books of the Old Testament, while the non-canonical books either do not translate at all (Sire, Prem, 1-2 Makk, Var, Ambassador Jer), or slightly edits the Old Latin translation (Tov, If). Of the New Testament, Jerome himself corrected only the Gospel; the rest of the New Testament books were corrected in Rome at the end of 4 - beginning. 5 c. in the circle of Pelagius and Rufinus. A complete set of biblical books in a new Latin translation appears in the middle of the 5th century.

More than 10 thousand Vulgate manuscripts are known, the most ancient date back to the 5th century. In 1456 the first printed edition was published (the 42-line Gutenberg Bible, or Mazarin's Bible). Officer. publications of the Vatican are considered to be editions of 1590 ( Six tina) and 1592 ( Clementina); Clementine reprinted to date as the standard text of the Vulgate.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II blessed the work on a new Latin translation, which was intended as a correction of the Vulgate according to the Masoretic text and the Septuagint, taking into account the Old Latin translation.

The Vulgate is one of the most significant secondary sources for both the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and the Greek text of the New Testament, especially in its Byzantine (ecclesiastical) form; the sources at the disposal of Blessed Jerome are often textologically superior to those available today. Both in the manuscript period, and - especially - in the era of printing, the Vulgate exerted a decisive influence on the text and structure of biblical translations into all European languages. It was the original for translations of the Bible into national languages, mainly in Catholic countries, but also among the Orthodox Slavs (starting with the Gennady Bible).

Syrian.

Old Testament part Peshitta- the most famous Syriac translation of biblical books. This name (from Syrian - literally "simple") has been known since the 9th century. The Syrian version of the Old Testament as a whole takes shape by the end of the 2nd - the beginning of the 3rd century.

For a long time Peshitta edited and improved. Compared to the Septuagint, the history of the text Peshitta appears to be fairly stable; meaningful options are rare.

Probably the first Syriac translation of the New Testament is the so-called Diatessaron. This translation was compiled, according to tradition, ca. 160 AD by the Syrian apologist Tatian and represented the harmonization of the 4 Gospels. Diatessaron was distributed about two and a half centuries and in the 5th century. was taken out of use by the bishops Rabbula Edessa and Theodoret Kirsky.

New Testament part Peshitta that replaced Diatessaron- the result of the approximation of the so-called ancient version (which arose around the 3rd century) to the Greek text. Apparently, this editing was carried out by Bishop Rabbula of Edessa; new text supplanted as Diatessaron, and the ancient version. From the fact that Peshitta used by the Monophysite ( see also MONOPHISISM), and the Nestorian Churches, we can conclude that its New Testament part appeared and gained authority no later than the middle of the 5th century. There are a large number of New Testament manuscripts Peshitta. Its text is accepted as the standard Syrian New Testament and is used by all Syrian Churches.

Coptic.

There are known translations of the Bible into various Coptic dialects. language: Said, Ahmim, etc. ( see also COPTIC).

At the initial stage of the spread of Christianity in Egypt, the Septuagint was used. The Coptic translation does not appear earlier than the beginning of the 2nd century. The story in Lives of St. Anthony(written by St. Athanasius the Great), about how St. Anthony, being illiterate, he listened to (c. 270) the Gospel. It is possible that, in addition to the Gospel, by that time there was already a translation of at least the Psalms and the prophets.

4 c. characterized by the emergence of a large number of translations of the Bible into Coptic, primarily into the classical literary dialect of the Coptic language - Said.

The presence of translations of individual Old Testament books into this dialect is evidenced by the manuscripts of the 4th century: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Books of Jeremiah and Baruch, Isaiah. The oldest manuscript of the Psalter is dated no earlier than 400 (despite the fact that the Psalter begins to be used early in worship). Coptic literature often contains quotations from the Said translation of the Old Testament. In accordance with the rules of St. Pachomy, the ability to read, as well as the knowledge of significant Bible passages by heart, was essential even for the novices of his monasteries.

The oldest Said New Testament manuscripts of the New Testament date back to the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 4th century.

Ancient Armenian.

The first translations of biblical books into ancient Armenian were carried out between 405 and 414, immediately after the invention of the Armenian alphabet Mesrop Mashtots. Probably, this translation (Arm I) was made by Mashtots himself, Catholicos Sahak Partev and their students; after a while it was verified in Greek. manuscripts delivered after the III Ecumenical Council (431) from Byzantium, revised and in some cases executed anew. This Armenian version (Arm II) received its final form in the mid-30s of the 5th century.

Most of the New Testament books in Arm I were most likely translated from Syriac. On the contrary, Arm II is a translation from the Greek. original.

During the 5-8 centuries. Arm II has been revised several times to bring it closer to the Greek text. There is reason to believe that, along with Arm II, Arm I was also used until the 8th century.

During the heyday of the Bagratids (10th – 11th centuries) of Armenian monasteries and monastery scriptorias, the final stabilization of the text of Arm II took place, which was brought to perfection in the transmission of the Greek original.

Old Georgian.

The translation of the Bible into Georgian began to be created during the years of the preaching of St. Nina v Kartli (East Georgian state) at the beginning of the 4th century. The first manuscripts of the Gospel date back to the 9-10th centuries; by the 10th century the oldest lists of the Apostle belong. The earliest manuscript of the Apocalypse is dated 978. The subject of discussion is the language from which the Georgian translation of the New Testament was made. Some researchers believe that from the Syrian, others - that directly from the Greek. The complete Bible in Georgian was first printed in Moscow in 1743.

Gothic.

The Gothic language was the first of the Germanic languages ​​into which the Bible was translated (). The translation from Greek was made by the Visigothic Arian Bishop Wulfila (Ulfila) (c. 311–383 (?)) after part of the Visigoths, who converted to Christianity, due to the persecution of Christians in their places of residence north of the Danube, led by their bishop moved in 348 to the territory of the Roman Empire in the Lower Moesiyu (modern Northern Bulgaria). By now, the translation of most of the Gospels and almost all of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul (except for the Epistle to the Hebrews) has survived from the New Testament, while only a passage from the book of Nehemiah (chapters 5-7) has survived from the entire Old Testament, but there are no traces of translation The Psalms and Pentateuchs are important for the catechesis of converts and for worship, so some scholars doubt the existence of a translation of the entire Old Testament into Gothic.

The surviving copies of the Gothic translation of the Bible date back to the 5th – 6th centuries. The most important Gothic biblical manuscript is the so-called Silver Code, written in silver lettering with gold initials on purple parchment. The manuscript contains the entire Gospel of Mark, the other three Gospels - in significant fragments, but this is less than half of the original volume.

Church Slavonic.

The handwritten heritage of the Church Slavonic Bible is very rich. Number of Old Testament manuscripts of the 11-18th centuries approaching 4500; The exact number of New Testament manuscripts is unknown, but there must be at least twice or three times that number. Church Slavonic biblical manuscripts are intended primarily for liturgical use and are of Bulgarian, Serbian and East Slavic origin, with the latter in the majority.

The first translations of biblical and other liturgical texts into Church Slavonic were made in the second half of the 9th century. in Moravia by Cyril and Methodius and their disciples. The composition of the Bible books translated during this period remains a subject of debate, but there is no doubt that the New Testament was translated in full, the Psalter and some books of other books of the Old Testament were also translated. The language of these translations is notable for its archaism and a large number of lexical borrowings from the Greek language, combined with the free transfer of the grammatical features of the original. The translations are clear and accurate, and mistakes are extremely rare.

The texts of the Cyril and Methodius era have not survived. The Gospel has been preserved in manuscripts since the 11th century. In the beginning. 14th century it was edited twice on Mount Athos from the Greek original. The new edition, characterized by literalism in the transmission of the Greek text, became widespread and was subsequently used as the basis for printed publications.

The story of the Apostle is less well known than the story of the Gospel. From the 11th century. only one list reached, and only in fragments. In the 14th century. The Apostle was cast down to the same redaction as the Gospel.

The oldest manuscript of the Psalter dates back to the 11th century. From the 14th century. The Athos edition of this biblical book, corrected according to the Greek text, is widely distributed.

The creation of the first complete biblical code was carried out in Novgorod by order of the archbishop. Gennady (after whom this collection was called the Gennady Bible) around 1499. The translators Dmitry Gerasimov and Vlas Ignatov, as well as the Croatian monk Benjamin, took part in the work. The latter translated from the Vulgate books that were absent in the Church Slavonic manuscript tradition: 1 and 2 Chronicles, 1 Ezra, Nehemiah, 2 and 3 Ezra, Tobit, Judith, Esther (chapters 10-16), the Wisdom of Solomon, the prophecies of Jeremiah (chapters 1-25, 45–52) and Ezekiel (chapters 45–46), 1 and 2 Maccabees. The translation of these books is distinguished by extreme literalism, up to the violation of Church Slavonic grammatical norms; there is a noticeable tendency to convey each Latin word with only one Church Slavonic equivalent, without taking into account the polysemy of the word in the original language, which often leads to semantic losses. Some Latin words were borrowed into the Church Slavonic text without translation, which in some cases was compensated by the introduction of Slavic equivalents into the fields.

The first complete printed edition of the Church Slavonic Bible - the Ostrog Bible - was prepared in Southwestern Russia (which was part of the Commonwealth at that time), in the city of Ostrog in 1580-1581 on the initiative of Prince Konstantin Ostrog . In 1580 the New Testament and the Psalter were published, in 1581 - the entire Bible. G.D. Smotritsky took part in the work, Moscow printer Ivan Fedorov; Greeks Eustathius Nathanael and Dionysius Palaeologus-Rally. The list of the Gennady Bible was used as a textual basis, but verification was carried out using other manuscripts as well. From Greek printed sources, the Complutenian polyglotta 1514-1517 and the Aldin Bible 1518 were used.

In 1663, the first Moscow edition of the Bible appeared, which was a reprint of the Ostrog Bible with minor changes.

In 1712 Peter I ordered to correct the Church Slavonic Bible. However, the work was carried out slowly, the commissions replaced each other, and a new edition was published only in 1751, having received, after the name of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the name of the Elizabethan Bible. With minor corrections, this text is reprinted to this day.

In parallel with the biblical codes intended for extra-liturgical use, there was a liturgical edition of the Gospel and the Apostle; its history has not been sufficiently studied to date.

BIBLE TRANSLATIONS INTO NEW LANGUAGES

Russian.

Until the 18th century. The Bible in Russia existed only in the Church Slavonic language, which served almost the entire sphere of culture, while the (ancient) Russian language was used primarily as a means of everyday communication. Over the centuries, the Russian language has changed, and the initial distance between it and the Church Slavonic language has been constantly increasing. In addition, in the 18th century. there is a process of creating a Russian literary language, opposed to the traditional Church Slavonic, which, in turn, is beginning to be perceived as incomprehensible and in need of translation. In the first third of the 19th century. the process of language construction is entering its final stage, and the task of translating biblical texts into Russian rises to its full height. see also RUSSIAN LANGUAGE .

Translation of the Russian Bible Society.

The work on translating the Bible into Russian was started by the Russian Bible Society, formed in 1812 ( see also BIBLE SOCIETIES IN RUSSIA). In 1816, Alexander I allowed the creation of Russian. translation of the New Testament, and by 1818 a translation of the Gospel was prepared. The Russian text was given in parallel with the Church Slavonic one. In 1821, the entire New Testament was published in these two languages. In 1823, the translation of the New Testament was published without the Church Slavonic text.

Archimandrite (later Moscow Metropolitan) Filaret (Drozdov) made a great contribution to the creation of the translation of New Testament books. He compiled instructions for translators, and also wrote introductory articles to the first editions. According to the instructions, the translation had to be word-by-word; it was suggested to preserve the word order as much as possible; borrowing Church Slavonic vocabulary was prescribed either in the absence of Russian correspondences, or if such correspondences belong to the low style. In addition, the Church Slavonic text also determined the composition of the Russian translation made from the Greek original: fragments that were absent in the Greek original, but which were included in the Church Slavonic text, were retained with their highlighting in the Russian translation in square brackets. The translation of the Bible into Russian was conceived, therefore, primarily as an explanation, interpretation of the Church Slavonic text; this was also emphasized by the parallel arrangement of these translations in two columns. In the prefaces to the editions of the Russian Gospel and the New Testament, the need for Russian translation was explained by the changes that had occurred in the Russian language, as a result of which the Church Slavonic text became incomprehensible.

The translation of the Russian Bible Society, as well as other translations of that era, was made using primarily the textus receptus as the Greek original. Nevertheless, the Russian text in square brackets contains additions that are present in the text of the Elizabethan Bible (1751) in Greek manuscripts; most of these additions are missing from the textus receptus.

There are also other additions in the Russian text (in italics); they are words that are absent in the original, but necessary from the point of view of the stylistics of the Russian language.

A striking feature of the translation of the Russian Biblical Society is the harmonization (i.e. artificial reconciliation of parallel readings) of biblical books.

In 1822 the Psalter was published in Russian translation, which was made by Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky from the Hebrew original. In his introductory article, Filaret (Drozdov) noted the discrepancies between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text in the book of psalms.

In 1824-1825, the Eight Books were published (ie, the Pentateuch, the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth). The work on the translation was carried out since 1821, the St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev theological academies, as well as some seminaries, took part in it. Since some translations were not made on time, the completion and editing of them was entrusted to Archpriest G. Pavsky. (The translation of Genesis published in 1819 by Archbishop Filaret from the Masoretic text was not included in this edition.)

All three parts of the first Russian biblical translation (New Testament, Psalter, Eight Books) are characterized by the unity of translation principles - theological, textological and stylistic. The Russian translation mainly borrowed the terminology of the Church Slavonic text, but partly updated it to make theological concepts more accessible. A distinctive feature of the translation of Old Testament books is the transmission of the Hebrew tetragram with the word "Jehovah" (later, in the Synodal translation - "Lord"). The fourth commandment of the Decalogue is given in a semantic translation: "Remember the Sabbath day in order to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:12), and not literally "hallow". The language of the first Russian translation is precise and expressive, it operates with specific vocabulary; phrases look natural from the point of view of the Russian language. The footnotes comment on archaisms, untranslated Hebrew and Greek words, and proper names.

The translation of the Russian Bible Society is addressed primarily to the layman; being conceived as an explanation of the Church Slavonic translation, he went beyond this framework, giving an independent interpretation of the biblical text.

From the closure of the Russian Bible Society to the official resumption of work on the Russian translation of the Bible.

The closure of the Russian Bible Society did not mean a complete cessation of work on the translation of the Bible into Russian. Among the translations that appeared from the mid-1820s to the mid-1850s, the Old Testament translations of Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky and Archimandrite Macarius (Glukharev) should be noted.

1. Translations of Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky. Professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky, giving lectures on the Hebrew language and theology in 1818-1836, translated into Russian and commented on Old Testament texts; in this way all the Old Testament books were translated, with the exception of the Eight Books (translated earlier). In addition to the biblical text itself, the lectures contained short explanations and detailed tables of contents. In the translation, no insertions were made from Church Slavonic or Greek texts; proper names were given in a form close to the sound in the Hebrew language. The translation is characterized by accuracy, lack of literalism, resourcefulness in finding Russian. matches; as in the translations of the Russian Bible Society, preference is given to specific vocabulary. The name Jehovah is used consistently. In artistic terms, the translation is more folklore than book style.

In 1839-1841, Pavsky's lectures were lithographed by students and were widely circulated not only in academies and seminaries, but also in secular society; however, the dissemination of the translations brought accusations of heresy on the author; the analysis of the case in the Holy Synod ended with the destruction of a significant number of lithographs. Subsequently (in 1862-1863) they were partially published in the journal Spirit of the Christian.

2. Translations of Archimandrite Makarii (Glukharev). Archimandrite Makarii (Glukharev) is known primarily as a missionary; the place of his preaching was Siberia, in particular Altai. His experience in missionary activity led him to the conviction of the need for a complete translation of the Bible into Russian. In 1836-1847 he translated most of the Old Testament books. Archimandrite Macarius shared the opinion of G. Pavsky regarding the greater value of the Hebrew text in comparison with the Septuagint; apology of the Masoretic text is devoted to his note On the need for the Russian church to transcribe the entire Bible from the original texts into modern Russian(1834). In his translations from Hebrew, he used the Eight Books, published by the Russian Bible Society, and G. Pavsky's translations, and also took into account translations into European languages.

Synodal translation.

Immediately after the accession to the throne of Alexander II, in 1856, Moscow Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) renewed efforts to create a complete Russian translation of the Bible. He publishes a previously written article On the dogmatic dignity and protective use of the Greek seventy interpreters and Slavic translations of the Holy Scriptures in which he substantiates the importance of both the Septuagint and the Masoretic text for understanding the Old Testament; publishes a note by Archimandrite Macarius 1834 on the superiority of the Masoretic text. In 1862, he received permission from the Synod to use the Hebrew text of the Old Testament as the basis for translation, draws up instructions for translators, in which he indicates how to proceed in the event of a discrepancy between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.

To edit the translations of Archpriest G. Pavsky and Archimandrite Macarius, Metropolitan Philaret invited St. Petersburg University professor D.A. Khvolson and St. Petersburg Theological Academy professors V.A. Levison, M.A. Golubev, E.I. Lovyagin and P. I. Savvaitov. The books of Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach, and the Wisdom of Solomon were translated from Greek by the priest A.A. Sergievsky. Translations of the St. Petersburg group were published in the journal "Christian reading" in 1861-1871. The translation of the New Testament was distributed among the theological academies. The texts included in the Synodal Translation have undergone significant editing and differ markedly from journal publications. The final editing fell within the competence of the Synod and was carried out primarily by Metropolitan Filaret with the active participation of the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, Professor Archpriest A.V. Gorsky. In 1860 the Gospel was published, in 1862 - the Apostle; finally, in 1876 the Bible in Russian translation was published in full.

The translation, called the Synodal one, is, by and large, a revision of earlier translations; this is primarily reflected in the New Testament books. However, here, too, the translation of the Russian Bible Society (1823) was corrected consistently and carefully. The square brackets marking the additions taken from the Church Slavonic text, but absent in the textus receptus and the Alexandrian Codex, were eliminated, and only in some cases readings for which the publishers could not find the Greek were left in parentheses. sources. As a result of the removal of the parentheses, a false idea of ​​the stability of the Greek arose. text of the New Testament, which is equally represented by Church Slavonic and Russian. versions; thus, the Elizabethan Bible was favored over the testimony of Greek sources.

The greater archaism of the language of this translation of New Testament books in comparison with the translation of the Russian Bible Society was caused by the replacement of everyday Russian vocabulary with a book one (mainly from the Church Slavonic text). Due to its extreme closeness to the Greek original in the field of syntax and phraseology, and to the Church Slavonic text in vocabulary, the Synodal Translation has formed a kind of "biblical style" of the Russian language.

The publication of the Synodal Translation gave rise to controversy in church and scientific periodicals, some participants of which completely denied the possibility and / or the need to translate the Holy Scriptures into an ordinary, "profane", "vulgar" language. The target language was criticized - heavy, archaic, artificially Slavic; secondly, the initial textological principles were recognized as unsatisfactory - the mixing of the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.

However, soon after its appearance, the Synodal Translation acquired an independent meaning, functionally separating itself from the Church Slavonic text. As the first complete Russian version of the Bible, it acquired a special status and significance in religious life, contributing to the development of spiritual enlightenment and theological thought in Russia at the end of the 19th century. Church Slavonic remains the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church; however, for the heterodox confessions in Russia, the Synodal Translation became a liturgical text.

In 1956, when the opportunity arose for the first time after the revolution to publish the Russian Bible in the Soviet Union, it was planned to carry out stylistic corrections of the text, but the editing was reduced to minor changes in grammar. In addition, starting with this edition, the Synodal Translation is published in a new spelling.

Translations that have arisen under the influence or as a result of the Synodal Translation.

This translation, published in St. Petersburg in 1906, according to the author, was supposed to bring the Russian text closer to the Church Slavonic; the very appearance of the Synodal Translation Pobedonostsev regarded as a committed evil, the consequences of which should be minimized as much as possible. Solving this problem, Pobedonostsev in his translation, for example, “ridiculed by the Magi” replaces the Church Slavonic “mocked by the Magi”, “forgiveness of sins” with “forgiveness of sins”, “loud voice” with “the voice of great”, “taken in adultery” with “ I commit adultery, ”and so on. Editing volume in Apostle significantly less.

2. Cassian translation. The translation of the New Testament, commissioned by the British and Foreign Bible Society in the 1950s and 1960s, by a group of translators led by Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov), rector of the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, was originally conceived as an editing of the Synodal Translation. However, over time, the need for a new Russian version of the New Testament books was realized. The critical edition of Netsle - Alanda was taken as the source of the Greek text, in contrast to the Elizabethan Bible and the Synodal translation, which are based on the textus receptus. The Cassian version of the Russian New Testament took into account the achievements of biblical textual criticism, the connection of the New Testament Greek. Koine with Heb. and aram. languages, as well as the changes that have occurred in the Russian language since the first publication of the Synodal Translation. Writer Boris Zaitsev took part in the literary editing of the text; In addition to Bishop Cassian, Archpriest Nikolai Kulomzin, Baptist pastor A. Vasiliev and their disciples worked on the translation. The new translation was published in full by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1970.

3. Translations of the Septuagint by PA Yungerov.

Prof. The Kazan Theological Academy P.A. Yungerov published in 1908 - 1916 a translation from the Greek text of a significant part of the Old Testament, namely: Job, Psalter, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 12 minor prophets and Daniel. The original was the Septuagint published by G.B. Suit (1887–1894). The main task of the translation was to explain the Church Slavonic liturgical biblical text. The Russian translation is provided with introductory articles, as well as a philological analysis of the Greek original and theological commentaries. Deviations of the Church Slavonic text from the Septuagint are noted.

Modern translations.

After 1917, work on Bible translations in Russia was interrupted for several decades; only since the 1970s, translations of individual Old Testament books by S.S.Averintsev, I.M.Dyakonov and others have been published on the pages of literary and artistic publications. In 1991, the work of M.I.Rizhsky was published in Novosibirsk The Book of Job, containing the author's translation, a detailed historical and philological analysis of the text and accompanying articles. The translation was made from the Masoretic text using the evidence of the most ancient translations (Septuagint, Peshitta, Vulgate, etc.).

1. Translation by Averintsev - Alekseev.

In 1997, translations of the Gospels of Mark and John, the Epistle to the Romans and the Apocalypse with a preface by Met. Minsk and Slutsk Filaret; as noted in the introductory article, the Gospel of John is translated from the textus receptus, the rest of the books are from the Nestlé-Aland reconstruction; the footnotes indicate inconsistencies between the textus receptus and the main text of the critical edition. The names of the translators are not indicated, however, it is known that the translation of two books was made by S.S. Averintsev, two others - by A.A. Alekseev.

2. Translation of the New Testament by VN Kuznetsova. In the same 1997 in Moscow were published Canonical Gospels translated by V.N. Kuznetsova with a preface and accompanying articles by S.V. Lyozov and S.V. Tishchenko. In 2001, the revived Russian Bible Society published Good News- VN Kuznetsova's translation of the entire New Testament. The critical edition of Nestlé - Aland is taken as the Greek source. The translation, especially the 1997 edition, caused contradictory responses, often sharply negative. The target language was qualified as vulgar; a significant flaw was seen in the fact that Kuznetsova was almost completely replaced by the established theological terminology. It was pointed out that the language of translation, which by its naturalism is intended to emphasize the historical reliability of the New Testament events, in fact destroys the genre nature of the Gospel as a religious composition. At the same time, one cannot fail to note the fact that the renewal of the language enables the reader to take a fresh look at a familiar text, to pay attention to some points that previously seemed clear and did not raise questions; the translation contains interesting solutions, in some cases alternative readings of the Greek text are given. On the whole, however, Kuznetsova's translation can be viewed as the antipode of the Synodal Translation, and that is why it, in its current form, can hardly claim independence.

3. Translations of the Old Testament of the Russian Bible Society.

Since 2001, the Russian Bible Society has been publishing translations of individual books of the Old Testament (series editor - MG Seleznev). The Masoretic text was chosen as the original, however, in disputable cases, the readings of the Septuagint, Peshitta, Vulgate and other ancient translations are taken into account. The translation is provided with a historical and philological commentary, the language is focused on the modern Russian literary norm; the translators managed to avoid the extremes of both the Synodal translation, which is distinguished by a rather archaic language, and some modern Protestant translations with their extremely democratized stylistics. By 2004, translations of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Esther, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations of Jeremiah and Daniel were published.

English.

Old English period.

Medieval translations of biblical texts into Old English were done from the Vulgate; the first such experiments date back to the 8th century. At the beginning of this century, the Psalter was translated (the author of the translation is possibly Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne (d. 709)). Part of the Gospel of John, as well as the prayer "Our Father" contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, were translated by Bede the Venerable (673–735). King Alfred the Great (849–899) translated the Ten Commandments, as well as some other biblical texts.

By the end of the 10th century. the following translations are available: 1) West Saxon Gospels - a complete translation of the Four Gospels; 2) the translation of the Pentateuch, the books of Joshua, Judges, Kingdoms, as well as several books of the Old Testament apocrypha, made by Elfric the Grammaticus (c. 955–1020); 3) several translations of the Psalter.

In 1066 the Norman conquest of England took place, and the work of translating the Bible into Anglo-Saxon ceased for a long time.

Middle English period.

In the middle of the 14th century. three translations of the Psalter appear; by the 13-14 centuries. include anonymous translations of various parts of the New Testament.

The first English translation of the entire Bible appears towards the end of the 14th century; it was carried out on the initiative and under the direction of John Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384), who believed that the laity had the right to read Scripture in their own language. After his death, the reading of his Bible was prohibited (however, she continued to correspond, despite the ban). While the Bible was being translated in other European countries, there was another pause in translation in the British Isles, which lasted until the Reformation.

Protestant Translations: From Tyndale to the New English Bible.

During the Reformation, for the first time in the history of the English Bible, the Vulgate was rejected as the original for translation. Comparing it with the Masoretic text and the Septuagint revealed various errors of the Latin version of the Holy Scriptures. The fact that Protestant translators did not want to depend on the official Catholic text for their translations also played a role.

1. Translation of Tyndale.

William Tyndall was the first Protestant translator of the Bible into English. He was familiar with Greek and Hebrew. Tyndale published his translation of the New Testament at Worms in 1525; the next year, the publication reached England, where it was immediately burned. However, as was the case in an earlier era, despite the prohibition of the church authorities, the translation was reprinted many times, some editions came to England from the Netherlands. In 1530, a translation of some of the Old Testament books was published, but soon Tyndale was arrested, in prison he continued to work on the translation, but in 1536, on charges of heresy, he was burned at Vilvoorde (near Brussels).

Tyndale's translation had a pronounced Protestant ideology; Despite the fact that in the early 1530s Henry VIII broke off relations with Rome, the theological views of the translator did not evoke the sympathy of the English authorities. In his translation, Tyndall deliberately abandoned the traditional church vocabulary, which resulted in the consistent replacement of the term “church” with “community”, “priest” with “elder”, “repent” with “repent”, etc .; in addition, Tyndall relied heavily on the German translation by M. Luther.

2. The Coverdale Bible.

Meanwhile, in 1535, the complete English Bible was published in Germany, based on Tyndale's translation, completed and supplemented by his collaborator, Miles Coverdale; not knowing Hebrew, Coverdale had to resort to the Vulgate in his translation. The publication soon got to England and was distributed there, without encountering any opposition from the authorities.

3. Bible Matthew.

In 1537, with the permission of Henry VIII, a new edition of the Bible was published. A certain Thomas Matthew was named as the translator, but the real author was, apparently, another employee of Tyndall - John Rogers; a fictitious translator was needed in order to disguise the actual publication of the executed Tyndale's work. The biblical text was compiled from the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale and accompanied by numerous commentaries of a doctrinal nature.

4. Great Bible.

In 1539, a translation was published, called the Big Bible. The editor was M. Coverdale, but the text was closer to Matthew's Bible (and, obviously, was a reworking of this translation) than to Coverdale's Bible of 1535. The Big Bible was given the status of an official translation, the rest of the versions were banned.

5. Geneva Bible.

With the advent of the Catholic Mary in England ( cm... MARIA I) Many Protestants emigrated to Geneva. Under the leadership of John Knox, a Scottish Calvinist, and with the probable participation of M. Coverdale, English Protestants in 1557 in Geneva published the New Testament and the Psalter, and three years later - the complete Bible, called the Geneva Bible.

The Geneva translation was, in a sense, the most scientific translation of the time. The text of the Big Bible, improved by the editors, was used as a basis. The Geneva Bible quickly gained acceptance; nevertheless, it was not published in England until 1576. Despite the fact that Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558, the Geneva Bible struggled to make its way to the printing press, since the hierarchs of the Church of England reacted with hostility to this translation. However, after being printed, the Geneva Bible went through 140 editions; it was reprinted for some time even after the King James Bible was published. Shakespeare knew and quoted the Geneva Bible.

6. Episcopal Bible.

The Episcopal Bible came out in 1568; the translation is a collective work of the Anglican bishops. The Big Bible was taken as a basis, which was verified according to the Hebrew and Greek texts. In addition, successful translation solutions of the Geneva Bible were used. As the official biblical translation of the Church of England, the Episcopal Bible replaced the Great Bible.

7. Bible of King James.

Three decades later, at the initiative of the Puritan John Reynolds and with the support of King James I, work began on a new translation of the Bible. The work was divided among four groups of translators; the draft text had to be approved by all translators. Control functions were performed by a committee of 12 editors. The Episcopal Bible was taken as a basis, but other translations were also used. The King James Bible was published in 1611. For nearly four centuries, it actually had the status of an official translation, although the authorities never made any special orders on this matter.

8. Corrected translation (The Revised Version).

In 1870, at the initiative of the clergy of the Canterbury and York dioceses, it was decided to begin revising the text of the King James Bible. The revised translation was published in 1881-1895, but it could not replace the old text.

9. American translation (The American Standard Version). In 1901, the American Standard Translation was published in the USA. In turn, on the basis of this text, the Revised Standard Translation was prepared (the New Testament was published in 1946, the Old Testament in 1952).

10. New English Bible.

In contrast to the above experiences of correcting the King James Bible, the New English Bible (full edition - 1969) breaks with tradition dating back to Tyndall; the new version is characterized by the rejection of literal translation and the use of spoken English of the 20th century. All Christian churches in the United Kingdom, except the Catholic Church, contributed to this translation.

English Catholic Bible translations.

1. Douai-Reims translation.

Gradually, during the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church began to realize the need to translate the Bible into national languages. The Reims New Testament, translated from the Vulgate, was published in 1582; the translation was carried out at the English College in Reims (France) by G. Martin. In another French city, Douai, a translation of Old Testament books was published in 1609-1610. It was also started by G. Martin, and was completed by the president of the college, Cardinal William Allensky, with the assistance of R. Bristow and T. Worthington. The translation was also done from the Vulgate; the text contains many Latinisms and often reproduces the original literally. The English translation of the Bible published in Reims and Douai was called the Douai-Reims translation. From 1635 to 1749, only the New Testament part of it was reprinted; in 1749–1750, Bishop Richard Challoner corrected the translation of the Old Testament books, which breathed new life into the Douai-Reims translation.

2. Knox's translation.

The most important Catholic translation of the Bible into English in the 20th century. is the translation by Ronald Knox, published 1945–1949; the translation is distinguished by precision and grace. Knox's Bible is officially endorsed by the Catholic Church.

3. Jerusalem Bible.

Second half of the 20th century marked by the creation of biblical Catholic translations into English and French, known as the Jerusalem Bible. An annotated French translation from the original languages ​​was prepared at the Dominican Bible School (Jerusalem) and was published in 1956. An English translation was published a decade later.

4. New American Bible.

In the USA, with the support of the Bishop's Committee of the Brotherhood of Christian Doctrine, a Catholic translation of certain biblical books from the original languages ​​has been published since 1952; The entire New American Bible was published in 1970, replacing the Douai-Reims translation.

German.

Middle Ages.

By the end of the 8th century. the first Old High German translations of biblical books are dated; the surviving so-called Fragments of the Monzey monastery(Bavaria), which are excerpts from the transcription of the Gospel of Matthew.

During the late Middle Ages, translations of certain parts of the Bible continue to be carried out; in this era, the New Testament epistles were translated for the first time, as well as some of the prophetic books of the Old Testament.

The first complete German translation of the Bible was published in 1466 in Strasbourg by I. Mentelin; the original is the Vulgate.

Translated by M. Luther.

The editions of Erasmus of Rotterdam and I. Reikhlin made the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible available to the leaders of the Reformation.

Luther began his translation career with the use of quotations from the Bible in German in his essays. In 1517 he began to translate large portions of Holy Scripture. In 1522 he completed the translation of the entire New Testament. His translation of the Old Testament, which he made using editions of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, as well as the Vulgate, came out in parts from 1523 to 1534.

Luther revised the translation of the New Testament with his followers. He detailed his views in Translation message... The main translation principle Luther proclaimed the priority of "the meaning of the text over literality"; he believed that the translation should reflect the fundamental theological views of the translator, for which explanatory inserts were added to the main text; Caring for the clarity of the text, Luther focused on the spoken language, often used figurative expressions, tried to convey the rhythm and poetic sound of the original. Based on his theological views, Luther, in his own translation, changed the biblical canon: from the Old Testament he removed non-canonical books, and from the New Testament - the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of James.

Soon after the publication of Luther's Bible, Catholic translations of the Bible appeared, largely dependent on Luther's translation.

Revision of Luther's Bible.

The 1545 edition was reprinted in Germany until the 19th century. However, the German language changed, and over time, Luther's translation became incomprehensible. In 1863, at the Eisenach church conference, at the suggestion of the biblical societies, it was decided to develop a new version of the translation, which was supposed to be published in modern spelling, replacing the outdated vocabulary and modernizing the syntax; in addition, the revision was aimed at eliminating translation errors contained in the 1545 edition. The new text was to be the same for all German Protestants.

Work on the text has been going on for over 100 years; in 1984 by the Union of Evangelical Churches of Germany the final edition of the Luther Bible was completed. Published in the same year and used to this day, the edition maintains a balance between Luther's and modern translation principles, keeping in mind, first of all, the intelligibility of the biblical text for the reader. The new version of the translation is used both in worship and for religious education.

Protestant translations after Luther.

In parallel with the existence of the Luther Bible, starting from the 17th century. other biblical translations also appear. Translation experiences of the 17th and 18th centuries. reflect primarily the specificity of Protestantism as such, as well as the confessional features of its individual varieties within Lutheranism. In the 19th and 20th centuries. scientific, philologically verified translations appear.

The creators of the "communicative translations" carried out at the present time, first of all, pay attention to the accessibility of the target language, less worrying about formal compliance with the original text. The meaning of the original is conveyed as far as possible, understandably and clearly, including in those cases when the word form used in the translation no longer correlates with a similar word form in the original.

New Catholic translations.

The most authoritative among German Catholics before the 18th century. there remained the translation of I. Dietenberger, based on the official editions of the Vulgate and known as the "Mainz Bible". From the turn of the 18th to 19th centuries. Catholic translators are increasingly paying attention to the peculiarities of the original biblical text. The most popular among Catholics in Germany was the first translation of the New Testament from Greek, made by Karl and Leander van Essami. In 1830-1832 in Nuremberg, relying on the works of his predecessors, J.F. von Allioli published his version of the German Bible; The Allioli Bible remained the most authoritative Catholic translation until the late 19th century. In the second half of the 20th century. the Pattloch Bible (1956) and Herder's Bible (1965) are published; both of these Catholic translations are from the original languages.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which modernized many aspects of the life of the Catholic Church, allowed the use of national languages ​​as liturgical languages, and also recommended the implementation of new biblical translations from the original languages, and it was encouraged to involve representatives of other Christian churches in the work. In pursuance of the decisions of the Council, the Unity Translation (1979-1980) was created, addressed to the German-speaking reader; the canonical Old Testament books were translated here from the Hebrew and Aramaic texts, and the Deuterocanonical and New Testament books were translated from Greek, without special orientation to the text of the Vulgate; the translation of the Psalter and the New Testament was carried out jointly with the Evangelical Church of Germany. This translation uses modern literary German and is scientifically accurate; it was given the status of the official text of the Bible for all German-speaking Catholic dioceses.

French.

The first complete translation of biblical books into French in the Middle Ages, the Bible de Tu, was created at the end of the 13th century. and throughout the 14th century. enjoyed great popularity among the French and English aristocracy. A very important translation was Biblical history riya - expanded arrangement by Guillard de Moulins Scholastic stories Peter Komestor. In addition to the biblical text itself, it contained summaries, paraphrases and glosses from the "Bible de Tu", as well as various other materials; this version of the French. The Bible was circulated in northern France. The New Testament, translated by Moulin, was published at Lyon in 1474. Last revised edition Biblical history came out a quarter of a century later (followed by reprints of 1510 and 1515).

The creation of a translation of the Bible from the original languages ​​was recognized as an urgent need by the Protestants of Neuchâtel (Switzerland); their translation was published in 1535. A version revised by J. Calvin was published in Geneva in 1540; subsequently, beginning in 1546, several reprints of the Geneva Bible were published. The 1588 edition was used for a long time in the preparation of subsequent Protestant translations.

In the second half of the 16th century. 3 Catholic translations are being created. A translation of the Vulgate was published at Louvain in 1550. In 1566, R. Benois's translation was published, which is an adaptation of previous translations of the Bible, including the Geneva Bible; in 1578 in Antwerp Benois's Bible was republished with corrections and subsequently withstood more than two hundred reprints.

In the 17th century. French Protestants once again reprinted the Geneva Bible. However, after the decree of Louis XIV of 1661, the publication of biblical translations became fraught with great difficulties; in 1678, 7 years before the abolition of the Edict of Nantes About religious tolerance, it is interrupted.

Two significant editions of the Bible were published in the Netherlands: in 1669 a reprint of the Geneva Bible with extensive commentaries was published in Amsterdam; in the same place in 1707 the Utrecht pastor D. Martin published a translation that preserves the Calvinist dogma, but at the same time takes into account the achievements of contemporary researchers.

Martin's Bible was revised twice (in 1724 and 1744) by J.F. Oosterwald, a pastor from Neuchâtel. The translation of 1744, despite some shortcomings, was successful until the end of the 19th century. withstood four dozen editions.

In the 17th century. Several editions of the New Testament were published by Catholics. The leading role in this work was played by the Port-Royal monastery. One of the coordinators of the translation carried out at Port-Royal, I.L. Le Maitre de Sacy, within 12 years, starting in 1672, published the translation of 10 Old Testament books. After his death, which followed in 1684, the translation of the entire Old Testament was completed by his associates from this monastery. Thus, from 1672 to 1693, one of the most perfect French biblical translations was published. De Sacy's Bible, replacing the Louvain Bible, remained the most authoritative French version of Scripture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

From 1701 to 1716, L. de Carrière published in Paris and Reims the Bible in 32 books, providing the text with literary notes. Almost simultaneously, 1707 to 1716, the Benedictine O. Calmet published 26 volumes of lit. commentaries on all Old Testament and New Testament books. In 1748-1750, the so-called Vance Bible was published - a 14-volume edition prepared by Abbot A.F. de Vence. In this translation, previous experiments were taken into account and improved; however, this translation was available only to the clergy and high-ranking laymen, as well as in libraries.

In 1894 the 1st volume of the biblical translation of O. Crampon, the canon of Amiens, was published; The translator died in the same year, so his work was completed by 4 Jesuit priests, and 10 years later the final 7th volume was published. Crumpon's translation was the first Catholic translation from the original languages. The reaction to this work was restrained, and subsequently a number of corrections were made to the translation; for all that, however, French. Catholics received a translation of the Bible, which until mid. 20th century remained the most authoritative.

During the 19th century. in Europe, several Bible societies were organized by Protestants, initially publishing old translations without subjecting them to any meaningful editing; the exception was the Lausanne Bible, as well as the translations of Sgon, Reis and Darby.

The Lausanne Bible was published in 2 parts: in 1839 a translation of the New Testament was published, from 1861 to 1872 - the Old Testament. In comparison with Osterwald's translation, the Lausanne Bible has more than 700 new words, which undoubtedly enriched the French biblical vocabulary. L. Sgon, professor of the theological faculty in Geneva, in 1874 published in Paris and Geneva a translation of the books of the Old Testament, and in 1880 in Geneva - the New Testament. From 1874 to 1881 in Paris, a full biblical translation was published by the professor of the Strasbourg theological faculty, E. G. Reis; the volume of the edition was 16 volumes, the text of the Bible was accompanied by lengthy commentaries. This edition did not become widely available and did not receive wide distribution and popularity, but it played a significant role in the study of the text of the Bible.

In 1859, J.N. Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brothers' community, published in Vevey (Switzerland) and in Saint-Agreve his translation of the New Testament, performed at a high scientific level. During the life of the translator, the Old Testament was not published, however, 3 years after Darby's death, an edition is published that includes the Old and New Testaments in his translation.

In 1884, on the initiative of several synods of the French Reformed churches, a revision of the Osterwald Bible was begun. The work lasted a quarter of a century; the new edition was published in 1910; the correction in a number of cases was insignificant, primarily this refers to the most frequently cited fragments.

By the centenary of its founding (1818), from 1911 to 1947, the Protestant Bible Society in Paris began preparing a new edition of the Bible. This translation, called the Bible of the Century, has been published in separate books since 1916; leading biblical scholars of the Reformed churches participated in translation activities.

In the late 19th - early 21st century. The Sgon's Bible has been revised and republished several times. Its most recent publication was by United Bible Societies in 2002.

Until 1950, the most popular French. the Catholic translation remained the Crumpon Bible. In the following decades, this translation was revised three times.

In 1973 the Bible was published by E. Osti and J. Trenquet; the publication was preceded by 25 years of work; during this time, translations of selected Bible books were published.

In 1965, the publication of the so-called ecumenical translation began, carried out on the initiative of representatives of various Christian churches. In 1987, a complete ecumenical French translation of the Bible was published under the auspices of the United Bible Societies.

An example of an unconventional approach to the translation of biblical texts is the Bible published in 1985 by the United Bible Societies in spoken French. With the aim of making the Holy Scripture accessible even to those who do not have a deep knowledge of the French language, the translators used the works of the linguist J. Guguenem, who in the 1950s, at the request of UNESCO, defined the boundaries of the “basic French language”. This reduced language is characterized by a limited vocabulary (approximately 3.5 thousand words), short sentences, and simplified verb conjugation. The translation was completed by 1993 and published in 2000.

Another experimental Bible translation was released in 2001 by Bayard. The publication is focused on modern cultural realities and aims to attract readers brought up outside of Christian culture. The authors of the translation see the way to solving this problem in the rejection of traditional church vocabulary and phraseology.

Spanish.

As a result of the activities of the Inquisition, from many Spanish and Catalan manuscripts of the era preceding the Reformation, insignificant fragments were preserved, therefore, for the 16th, 17th and most of the 18th centuries. only Protestant translations of the Bible into Spanish are known.

The complete translation of the Bible was first produced by C. de Reina, a Protestant émigré; it was published in Basel in 1569. The basis for the New Testament was primarily the edition of Erasmus of Rotterdam, for the Old Testament - the Hebrew edition of the Bible. In 1602, the Reyna Bible was revised by K. de Valera, taking into account the original texts and under the name of the Reyna-Valera Bible, with minor changes, is republished up to the present. time. The experience of creating a single translation of the New Testament for Spain and Latin America (Hispano-Ame ricana, 1917) was unsuccessful.

The first Catholic translation of the Bible into Spanish, made from the Vulgate by F. Sio de San Miguel, was published in 1793. From the Vulgate, the translation by F. Torres Amat (1825) was also made. Both versions were reprinted several times throughout the 19th century.

The official Catholic translation from the original languages ​​was made by E. N. Fuster and A. Kolunga and published in 1944. In 1975 the so-called New Spanish Bible by A. Shockel and H. Mateos was published; a revised edition was published in 1977.

In 1966, the New Testament was published, translated into colloquial Spanish, for the purpose of the mission in Lat. America. A revised version of the popular Bible was published in 1992.

Italian.

The first translations of the Bible into Italian date back to the 13th century, but they have not reached us.

The first complete printed Bible was published in Venice in 1471; the translation was made by N. Malermi, the Vulgate served as the original. For three centuries (up to 1773), the Mahlermi Bible was reprinted 31 times.

In 1532 the Italian humanist A. Brucioli published the Bible, taking lat. translations by S. Pagninus and Erasmus of Rotterdam; in 1559 this translation was banned. Meanwhile, in 1562 Brucioli's Bible was revised in Geneva and gained great importance for the Italian Protestants who emigrated to Switzerland.

In 1538, a translation of the Dominican Order was published that focused on the Vulgate. The only translation of the New Testament made from the Greek. language, was translated by the Protestant M. Teofilo (1551).

For two centuries, from 1568 to 1768, the publication of the Bible in the national language was prohibited in Italy; for this reason, the further history of translations again turns out to be associated with Protestantism.

The leading role was played by the translation performed by the Italian born in Geneva Giovanni Diodati (1607). Diodati revised his translation in 1641; in this form, his Bible became generally accepted by the Italian Protestants. In the 17th century. in Germany, further revisions have been published several times. Revised versions of Diodati's translation circulated in the 19th century. British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1924 G. Luzzi subjected this translation to a cardinal revision; his version of the translation retains its significance today.

In 1781, the official Catholic translation of the Bible by A. Martini was published; the Vulgate was taken as the original text. The translation of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, commissioned by the Society of Bl. Jerome and published since 1902.

In 1968, the ecumenical Bible of the Concordat was published, a collaboration between Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish theologians. An Italian translation of the French ecumenical Bible was published in 1975.

By order of the Conference of Italian Bishops, the Catholic S. Garofalo created a new version of the Italian Bible (1971). In 1992, the translation from Greek of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles by A. Ghirlanda was published in 4 volumes.

An ecumenical translation of the Bible into spoken Italian was completed in 1985.

BIBLE TRANSLATIONS INTO OTHER LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD

The Bible still ranks first in terms of the number of translations into various languages ​​of the world. According to the German Bible Society (Stuttgart, 1995), the largest number of translations of the Scriptures (about 600) were carried out into the languages ​​of the peoples of Africa (for example, in Amharic (Ethiopia) the Bible was published in 1840 by the British and foreign Bible Society). More than 400 languages ​​in North and South America; in Australia (together with the Pacific Islands) - approx. 300. In Asia, translations have been made into over 500 languages.

Translations of the Bible into Japanese have been made since the mid-16th century, but they have not survived. The oldest biblical translation that has come down to us dates back to 1837 (it came to Japan no earlier than 1859): some New Testament books were translated by the Prussian missionary K.F.A. Guzlaff. Intensive work on the translation of the Holy Scriptures into Japanese begins only in the last third of the 19th century. The first complete translation of the Bible was made by the efforts of the American Presbyterian missionary J.C. Hepburn and his European and Japanese collaborators: in 1874-1880 a translation of the New Testament was prepared, by 1888 - the Old Testament. In 1910–1917, the Bible was published, which included the revised text of the New Testament and the text of the Old Testament of 1888; this edition remained the most authoritative until the middle of the 20th century.

In 1867, the founder of the Orthodox mission in Japan, Hieromonk (later Metropolitan) Nikolai (Kasatkin), began to translate the Bible into Japanese. A translation of the New Testament was published in 1901; Met. Nicholas also translated the most important passages of the Old Testament.

In 1951–1955, taking into account changes in the Japanese language, a new translation was carried out by the Japanese Bible Society; the group of translators was led by Tsuru Senji, the translation was made from Heb. and Greek. languages. In 1987, an ecumenical (Catholic-Protestant) translation of the Bible was published.

The first translations of biblical texts into Chinese date back to the middle of the 7th century and were made by Nestorian missionaries. Certain parts of Holy Scripture were translated by Catholics in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. In the 19th - early 20th century. there appeared numerous Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox translations of the Bible (or some of its books) into Chinese. In 2001, Chinese authors with Heb. and Greek. languages, a "New Translation" was made.

Fedor Ludogovsky

Literature:

Canonical Gospels/ Per. from Greek VN Kuznetsova, ed. S.V. Lyozov and S.V. Tishchenko. M., 1993
Metzger B. Textual criticism of the New Testament... M., 1996
Bible encyclopedia... M., 1996
Chistovich I.A. History of the translation of the Bible into Russian... M., 1997
Metzger B. Canon of the New Testament... M., 1998
Sinilo G.V. Ancient Literatures of the Near East and the World of the Tanach(Old Testament). Minsk, 1998
Alekseev A.A. Textual criticism of the Slavic Bible... SPb, 1999
Griliches L. Archeology of the Text: A Comparative Analysis of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark in the Light of Semitic Reconstruction... M., 1999
Tov E. Textual criticism of the New Testament... M., 2001
Turcan R.K. Slavic Translation of the Bible: Origin, History of the Text and Major Editions... SPb., 2001
Metzger B. Early translations of the New Testament... M., 2002
D. Prophecies of Christ in the Dead Sea Scriptures... SPb, 2004

Bible. BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. For the Septuagint, see above. Jewish culture created in the Roman era the tradition of the so-called. "Targums", i.e. translations of the Old Testament, sometimes translations, interpreting into the spoken Aramaic language of this era. Of particular importance is the ancient Syrian translations of the Bible, already because the Syrians were as close as possible to the environment of Palestinian Jewry in geographic, ethnocultural and, most importantly, linguistic terms, since the Syrian language is nothing more than the northern Mesopotamian dialect of the very Aramaic language that already sounds in the OT and spoken in Palestine during the New Testament. There is reason to believe that in the Syrian translations of the NT, primarily in ancient Peshitta, the turns of speech of Jesus Christ, who spoke in Aramaic, could be retained (in this sense, the cases when we meet the play on words lost in the Greek text are interesting, cf. Black M. An Aramaic Approach to Gospels and Acts, 3rd ed. Oxf. 1969). A special role in the history of European culture was played by the Latin translation, carried out in the late. 4 c. blessed. Jerome (c. 342-420), who studied the Hebrew language for this; from its connection with some parts of the older translation, the so-called. The Vulgate (actually editio Vulgata - "common edition", the term goes back to the official publication of the Roman Curia in 1590), up to the 2nd Vatican Council (1962–65), underlay the theological and liturgical creativity in the area of ​​Catholicism. Among the ancient translations, one should also note the Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian, as well as the Gothic (4th century), carried out by the Arian bishop Ulfilah and reached in part. When the practice of translation into vernacular languages ​​was challenged in Roman circles, more and more inclined to attach a sacred meaning to Latin, in the sphere of influence of the Byzantine Church (in Moravia, then in the South Slavic region) a Slavic translation of the Bible appeared, created by the brothers Cyril (826–869) and Methodius (c. . 815-885), "the apostles of the Slavs", and their disciples. This translation, focused on the transmission of the complex lexical and syntactic structure of the Greek language, molded a special language from the malleable linguistic material, which is usually called Old Church Slavonic (and in its later, up to the present day, liturgical functioning, Church Slavonic).

In the West, the pre-Reformation period creates conditions for new translations of the Bible into popular languages, generated by the growing desire of the emancipated reader, without the mediation of theologians, to figure out for himself what exactly Scripture actually says. Translation activity, especially active towards the end. 15th century and often causing conflicts with the Catholic church authorities, is crowned with the translation of Luther, completed by 1534 (the translation of the NT was published already in 1523); this is a very bright literary phenomenon, marked by great energy and popular expressiveness of the German language, which strongly stimulated the further development of German literature. If this initiative, although it has absorbed the experience of many translation attempts, nevertheless stands under the sign of the translator's personal talent and temperament, the "Authorized Version" adopted in Anglican usage for centuries was a successful outcome of many years of work in which members of fiercely fought religious groups of England. Its universal impact on the formation of the norms of the English literary language is comparable to that of Luther's translation in Germany. Modern times have provided many alternative translations. It should also be noted the translations of the OT into German by Judaism; in the Age of Enlightenment - by M. Mendelssohn, in the era of post-symbolic "modernity" - by M. Buber. Their direction is in a sense the opposite: if the first is guided by the abstract common human language of "natural religion", the second wants to convey a colorful archaism that does not fit into classical European norms.

In Russia, for a long time, only the translation of the Bible into Church Slavonic was accepted, going back to the initiative of Cyril and Methodius, but more than once undergoing significant revisions; it is still used in liturgical use. The work on the Russian translation, which had begun already by 1816 (see Our Lord Jesus Christ New Testament. St. Petersburg, 1823), went through numerous conflict situations; the first complete publication took place only in 1876. This translation, which in many respects turned out to be historically necessary and often justified by the compromise (by the way, in relation to the books of the Old Testament, the reference to the Septuagint was side by side with a glance at the Hebrew text), it is customary to call it Synodal; This carefully performed work, which sometimes pays for discretion with some vague decisions, is still the only Bible translation recommended to believers for extra-liturgical use by the Russian Orthodox Church (and recognized by some Protestant organizations in Russia). It is interesting that it almost did not enter into folklore and everyday use: even now we say in Slavic "Thou shalt not kill", and not in the Synodal translation - "Do not kill". During the time that has elapsed since its inception, it has undergone careful lexical and punctuation renewal. The translation of the New Testament, carried out by KP Pobedonostsev (New Testament. Experience in improving the translation into Russian. St. Petersburg, 1906), is focused primarily on the tradition of Slavic translation. It is necessary to note the inevitably tendentious work: Tolstoy L.N. Combination and translation of the four Gospels. Geneva, 1892-1894. Already from the middle of the 19th century. more than once there were also translations of the Old Testament from the Masoretic text, intended "for the use of the Jews." In the 50s. 20th century the forces of the Russian emigration, headed by Bishop Kassian (Bezobrazov), an excellent connoisseur of the Greek language, began work on a new translation of the New Testament, first published in full in 1970; This translation tries not to deviate unnecessarily either from the style of the Synodal translation, or from the particulars of the Greek text (up to the word order), its advantages include accuracy and clarity in revealing the meaning, and its disadvantages include a certain dryness of intonation. In Soviet times, it was possible to publish as part of the volume "Poetry and Prose of the Ancient East". M., 1973, literary translations of some books of the OT in the translations of I. Dyakonov, S. Apt, I. Braginsky and S. Averintsev. The end of the Soviet atheistic officialdom caused an explosion of translation work on the Bible, both in Russia and abroad - with a view to the Russian reader. Here is a far from complete list of recent domestic translation initiatives:

1. Old Testament: From Genesis to Revelation. Teaching. Pentateuch of Moiseevo, trans., Introduction and comments by I.Sh. Shifman. M., 1993 (academic work of a famous semitologist); The Pentateuch of Moses, or Torah, with rus. translation, commentary based on classical interpretations ... ed. G. Branover, I – V. Jerusalem, 1990–1994 (translation means the needs of a modern Russian-speaking Judaist, with a bias towards Chabad Hasidism, which is especially noticeable in the selection of interpretations); Genesis, trans. Bible Society International, 1998.

2. New Testament: Gospels, trans. O. L. Lutkovsky. M., 1991, which was preceded by a magazine publication: "Literary study", 1990 (eclectic work without systematically applied principles); Canonical Gospels, trans. VN Kuznetsova. M., 1992; The letters of the Apostle Paul, trans. her. M., 1998; Gospel of Mark, Gospel of John, Epistle to the Romans, Apocalypse. SPb., 1997.

Literature:

Prot. Stolyarsky P. Experience of the biblical dictionary of proper names, v. 1-5. SPb., 1879-1887; Archim. Nikifor. An illustrated complete popular Bible encyclopedia. M., 1891 (reprint: Korntal, 1989; M., 1990); Korsunsky I. Translation of Semide-syati. Its significance in the history of the Greek language and literature. Sergiev Posad, 1398; Explanatory Bible, or Commentary on all the books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, v. 1-3. SPb., 1904-13 (reprint: Stockholm, 1987); Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Brussels, 1990; Bible. Literary and Linguistic Research, vol. 1. M., 1998; Tresmontant C. Etudes sur la metaphysique biblique. P., 1955; Filson F. V. Which Books belong to the Bible? A Study of the Canon. Phil. 1957; Barthel P. Interpretation du langage mythique et theologie biblique. Leiden, 1963; The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. by L. Greenslade. Cambr., 1963 IT .; Campenhausen H. V. Die Entstehung der christlichen Bibel. Tub. 1968; Die Einfuhrung in die Methoden der biblischen Exegese. Wurzburg, 1971; Ban J. The Semantics of Biblical Language. L.-Phil. 1983; The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. by R. Alter and F. Kermode. L. 1987; Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, ed. by R. J. Coggins and J. L. Houlden. L. - Phil., 1990.

Old Testament:

Yungerov P. A. General historical and critical introduction to the sacred Old Testament books. Kazan, 1902; He's the same. Private historical and critical introduction to the sacred Old Testament books, 1-2. Kazan, 1907; Wellhausen J. Introduction to the history of Israel, trans. I. Nikolsky. SPb., 1909; Gershenzon M.O. The key of faith. P., 1922 (philosophical reflections of the famous historian of Russian culture on the Bible); Kartashev A.V. Old Testament biblical criticism. Paris, 1947; Averinschev SS Greek "literature" and Middle Eastern "literature" ... - In collection: Typology and mutual influence of the literatures of the ancient world. M., 1971; He's the same. Hebrew literature. - In the book: History of World Literature. M., 1983, p. 271-302; He's the same. Wisdom in the Old Testament. - "Alpha and Omega", 1994, No. 1, p. 25-38; prot. Men A. How to read the Bible? A guide to reading the books of the Old Testament. Brussels, 1981; Frazer J. Folklore in the Old Testament. M, 1985; Weinberg I.P. Man in the culture of the ancient Near East. 1986; Shifman I. Sh. Old Testament and its world. M., 1987; Tov E. Textology of the Old Testament. M., 1999; Schmidt H. Die religiose Lyrik im Alten Testament. Tiib., 1912; Albright W. F. From the Stone Age to Christianity. N.Y., 1946.2 ed. 1957; Idem. The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra. N.Y., 1963; Idem. Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan. L., 1968; Sellin E., Fohrer G. Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 11. Aufl., Hdlb., 1969; Friedman R. E. Who Wrote the Bible? L. 1987; Die Septuaginta zwischen Judenium und Christentum, hrsg. v. M. Hengel und A. M. Schwemer. Tiib., 1994.

New Testament:

Glubokovsky H. H. Lectures on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament ... SPb., 1892-1901; Onge. By announcing St. the Apostle Paul by his origin and essence, v. 1 -Z. SPb., 1905-12; Onge. Announcing Christian Glory in the Apocalypse. Jordanville, 1966; Muretov M. D. New Testament as a subject of Orthodox theological study. Sergiev Posad, 1915; He's the same. The Four Gospels. Sergiev Posad, 1915; Zhebelev S.A. Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels. Pg, 1919; En. Cassion (Bezobrazov). Christ and the first Christian generation. Paris, 1950 (reprint: Paris, 1993); Averintsev S.S.The origins and development of early Christian literature. - In the book: History of World Literature, vol. 1. M, 1983; Metzger B.M. Textology of the New Testament. M., 1998; Levinskaya I. Acts of the Apostles. Historical and Philological Commentary, Ch. 1-8. M., 1999; Deissmann A. Lichtvom Osten. DasNeue Testament und die neuemdeckten Texte der hellenistisch-romischen Welt. Tiib. 1909; Barth K. Der Romerbrief, 1919; Grant F. With The Gospels. Their Origin and Growth. N.Y. 1957; Schrecker G. undSchnelle U. Einfuhrung in die neutestamentliche Exegese. Gott., 1985, Aland K., Aland B. Der Text des Neusn Testaments. Einfuhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Ausgaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modemen Textkxitik, 2. Aufl. Stuttg, 1989.

Periodicals:

Bible world. Illustrated periodical edition of the Russian Bible Society, 1993-96, since 1997 almanac of the Bible-Theological Institute of St. Andrew the Apostle (hereinafter EBI); Alpha and Omega. Scholarly Notes of the Society for the Dissemination of Holy Scripture in Russia. M., 1994 sl.; Pages. BBI magazine. M., 1996 sl.

S. S. Averintsev

New Philosophical Encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol. I, A - D, p. 260-264.

What is the Bible

The Bible is a collection of religious texts related to Judaism and Christianity and recognized as sacred in these religions. Texts proclaimed by denominations are called canonical. In Christianity, the Bible consists of two significant parts - the Old and New Testaments. In Judaism, the New Testament is not recognized, just as everything connected with Christ is disputed. Its very existence is being questioned or accepted with great reservations.

Old Testament

The Old Testament refers to a part of the Bible created in the pre-Christian era. This also applies to the beliefs of the Jews. The covenant consists of several dozen books, the number of which differs in Christianity and Judaism. The books are organized into three sections. The first is called the Law, the second is the Prophets, and the third is the Scriptures. The first section is also called the "Pentateuch of Moses" or "Torah". Jewish tradition traces it back to Moses' record of divine revelation on Mount Sinai. The books of the "Prophets" section include scriptures created during the period from the Exodus from Egypt to the Babylonian captivity. The books of the third section are attributed to King Solomon and are sometimes called the Greek term - psalms.

New Testament

The books of the New Testament make up the second part of the Christian Bible. They refer to the period of the earthly existence of Jesus Christ, his sermons and messages to his disciples-apostles. The basis is made up of the Gospels - from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The authors of the books, called "evangelists", were disciples of Christ and direct witnesses of his life, crucifixion and miraculous Resurrection. Each of them in his own way sets out the events associated with Christ, depending on what was highlighted as the main one. The Gospels convey the words of Jesus, his sermons and parables. The Gospel of John is considered the latest in time of creation. It complements the first three books to some extent. An important place in the New Testament is occupied by the books of the Acts of the Holy Apostles and the Epistle, as well as the Revelations of John the Theologian. The Epistles reflect the interpretation of Christian teaching from the Apostles to the church communities of that era. And also called the Apocalypse, gives a prophetic prediction of the Second Coming of the Savior and the End of the World. The book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles refers to the period following the Ascension of Christ. It, unlike the rest of the sections of the New Testament, has the form of a historical chronology and describes the areas where the events developed and the people who participated in them. In addition to the canonical books of the New Testament, there are also apocrypha, not recognized by the Church. Some of them are classified as heretical literature, others are considered insufficiently reliable. The Apocrypha are mainly of historical interest, contributing to the understanding of the formation of Christian doctrine and its canons.

The place of the Bible in world religions

The books that make up the Bible are not only Jewish and Christian traditions. They are of no less importance for Islam, which recognizes part of the revelations and persons whose deeds are described in them. Muslims consider not only Old Testament characters, such as Abraham and Moses, to be prophets, but also Christ as a prophet. The biblical texts in their meaning are associated with the verses of the Koran, and they thereby serve as confirmation of the truth of the doctrine. The Bible is a source of religious revelation common to three world religions. Thus, the largest confessions in the world are closely related to the Book of Books and recognize what is said in it as the basis of their religious perception of the world.

First Bible translations

Different parts of the Bible were created at different times. The earliest traditions of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew, and some of the later ones were written in Aramaic, which was the colloquial language of the "Jewish street." The New Testament was written in a dialect version. With the spread of Christianity and the preaching of the doctrine among different nations, there was a need to translate the Bible into the most accessible languages ​​of its time. The first known translation was the Latin version of the New Testament. This version is called the Vulgate. Early Bible translations include books in Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, and a few others.

Bible in Western European Languages

The Roman Catholic Church reacted negatively to translating the Bible into other languages. It was believed that this would disrupt the transmission of meaning caused by the difference in terminology inherent in dissimilar languages. Therefore, the translation of the Bible into German and English became not only an event in the field of linguistics, but also reflected significant changes in the Christian world. The German translation of the Bible was carried out by Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism. His activities led to a deep split in the Catholic Church, the creation of a number of Protestant movements, which today constitute a significant part of Christianity. English translations of the Bible, created since the XIV century, also formed the basis for the separation of some Christians around the Anglican Church and the formation of separate Protestant teachings.

Church Slavonic translation

An important milestone in the spread of Christianity was the translation of the Bible into Old Slavonic by the monks Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century AD. NS. The retelling of the liturgical texts from the Greek language required the solution of several problems. First of all, it was necessary to decide on the graphic system, to create an adapted version of the alphabet. Although Cyril and Methodius are considered the authors of the Russian alphabet, the statement that they used already existing sign systems used in Slavic letters, standardizing them for their task, looks quite convincing. The second problem (perhaps even more important) was the adequate transfer of the meanings set forth in the Bible in Greek terms into the words of the Slavic language. Since this was not always possible to implement, a significant array of Greek terms were introduced into circulation through the Bible, which received unambiguous interpretations through the disclosure of their meaning in the Slavic interpretation. Thus, the Bible, supplemented by the conceptual apparatus of Greek terminology, formed the basis of the so-called Church Slavonic language.

Russian translation

Although Old Church Slavonic is the basis of the late-time languages ​​spoken by many peoples, over time, differences accumulate between the publicly available modern language and the original basis. It becomes difficult for people to understand the meaning conveyed by words that have gone out of everyday use. Therefore, adapting the source text to modern versions of the language is considered a daunting task. Bible translations have not been carried out several times since the 19th century. The first of them was carried out in the second half of the named century. The Russian Bible received the name "synodal", since the translation was approved by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. It conveys not only the factual side associated with the life and preaching of Christ, but also the spiritual content of his views in words understood by a contemporary. The Bible in Russian is designed to make it easier for a modern person to correctly interpret the meaning of the events described. Religion operates with concepts that sometimes differ significantly from the usual everyday terminology, and the disclosure of the inner meaning of phenomena or the interrelationships of the spiritual world requires deep knowledge not only in Church Slavonic and Russian, but also a special mystical content, which is conveyed by words. The new Bible, translated into Russian, makes it possible to continue the transmission of the Christian tradition in society, using accessible terminology and maintaining continuity with the ascetics and theologians of the past.

Satanic bible

The influence of Christianity on society has provoked a reaction from opponents of the religion. In contrast to the Bible, teachings were created, clothed in texts of a similar form, some of which are called satanic (another term is the Black Bible). The authors of these treatises, some of which were created in ancient times, preach value priorities that are radically opposed to Christianity and the preaching of Jesus. They underlie many heretical teachings. The black Bible affirms the oneness and supremacy of the material world, placing a person with his passions and aspirations at his center. The satisfaction of one's own instincts and needs is declared to be the only meaning of a brief earthly existence, and for this any forms and actions are recognized as acceptable. Despite the materialism of Satanism, he recognizes the existence of the other world. But in relation to him, the right of an earthly person is preached to manipulate or control the entities of this world in order to serve their own passions.

The Bible in modern society

Christianity is one of the most widespread religious teachings in the modern world. This position has been held by him for a considerable time - at least more than a thousand years. The teachings of Christ, which the Bible gives, covenants and parables constitute the moral and ethical basis of civilization. Therefore, the Bible has become the most famous book in world history. It has been translated into almost all modern languages ​​and into many obsolete dialects. Thus, ninety percent of the world's population can read it. The Bible is also the main source of knowledge about Christianity.