Lenten Homilies AD 2009 – The Scriptures
2nd Sunday of Lent – The Translation
One of the major problems we face in trying to grapple in our minds with the Teaching of the Church is that much of what we were taught in schools was taught either by teachers who did RE because no one else would do it or by teachers who really didn’t know their subject. Occasionally matters were really bad and we got a teacher who fell into both categories. There was another problem and that was that what was taught was according to an agreed version, and to a certain degree this affected the study of history too. I well remember a conversation with a history teacher a few years ago who rattled out the old line of “Henry VIII: good and bad, Mary Tudor: bad, Elizabeth 1st: good.” I said that it wasn’t quite as simple as that and he said “Ah, you’ve been reading 'The Stripping of the Altars' and stuff by Scarisbrick, and yes they are right, but for the purposes of exams: Henry was good and bad, Mary was bad and Elizabeth was good."
Now if those of us who are well into our middle-age were taught RE poorly imagine what it is like today when it is even more difficult to get people to teach it.
What has all that got to do with today’s theme regarding the Scriptures, you might think? Well, I guess like me most of you were taught at school that one of the major problems in the mediaeval Church was the row over the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, that is local languages. This we were told was because the bishops and priests didn’t want people finding out what they already knew, because knowledge was power and that this in turn was one of the contributory factors in bringing about the Reformation. In reality the matter was, as is usually the case, not quite so simple. There was a very real fear that if the Bible was readable by everyone that it would be misinterpreted and to be honest I think anyone could acknowledge that this has been proved true over the last 500 years. The Church at the time wanted to safeguard the interpretation of Scripture rather than its translation and that is proved by the fact that translations into common tongues had been going on since earliest times.
The Scriptures were originally written in Hebrew and Greek with parts of the Old Testament being written in Aramaic. But were any of us ever told at school that in the 56 years before Martin Luther translated it into German in 1522 eighteen translations had been made in Germany and yet somehow this is considered one of Luther’s crowning achievements. Furthermore translations were made into Italian in 1471, Dutch in 1478 and French in 1479. If we go back in time to AD 400 we will see a translation, by St Jerome, into a common tongue: Latin. Some of you may have heard of the Vulgate version of the Bible – Vulgate is Latin for “Common” for Latin in that era was the common tongue of the Empire. As vernacular languages began to develop and take over from Latin the Bible was one of the first books to be translated and were common throughout Europe before the Reformation. Not something that we were taught at school!
Having the Bible translated was not the main problem – making sure it was a correct translation and the interpretation of it were.
There is an old Latin saying which says “Omnis traductor traditor” which means “Every translator is a traitor.” What this is trying to say is that there is no such thing as an accurate translation. It has been suggested that a new translation is needed every thirty years or so, but most good translations try to express a literal word for word translation. This will usually mean a more traditional style of language and some involved sentence structure. Our Bibles fall into this category. Some translations try to give the meaning in a way that is engaging and the Good News Version is one such translation, but most scholars would question whether it was an accurate translation. The Living Bible is a complete paraphrase and should be avoided at all costs.
Now I could take you on a “Cooks’ Tour” of the history of the translation of the Bible (and of the large number of translations available today) but that would take far too long and I doubt would be very beneficial, but did you know that the following ancient English Saints used various parts of the Bible translated into English: St Augustine, St Wilfred, St Caedmon and the Venerable Bede? Incidentally, so did King Alfred the Great. You will have all no doubt heard of the Lindisfarne Gospels which are handwritten in Anglo-Saxon – you can see it in the British Museum.
If anything the resurgence, after a 1000 years, of reading the Biblical texts in the original Hebrew and Greek were what precipitated a demand for more thorough English translations, as biblical scholars and others realised that the language had developed and that the translations were out of date. Interestingly, we were all told at school about the problems that John Wycliffe caused with his English translation, but it was never printed until 1850 and today we would not recognise it as English as our language has developed considerably. I have put up at the back of Church the English translations of the “Our Father” in the Lindisfarne Gospels and those by John Wycliffe and William Tyndale (included here for online readers):
Lindisfarne Gospels (about 950 – Old English / Anglo-Saxon):
fader gehalgad sie noma oin tocymaeo ic oin half usene daeghuaemlice sel us eghuelc daege fgef us synna usra gif faestlice aec pe fgefaes eghuelc scyldge us fgef ne usic onlaed ou in costunge.
Wycliffe Bible (1382 – Middle English):
Fadir, halewid be thi name. Thi kingdom come to. Zyue to vs to day oure eche days breed. And forzyue to vs oure synnes, as and we forzyuen to eche owynge to vs. And leed not vs in to temptacioun.
Tyndale New Testament (1525 – early modern English):
Oure father which arte in heve, hallowed be thy name. Lett thy kingdom come. They will be fulfillet, even in erth as it is in heven. Oure dayly breed geve us this daye. And forgeve vs oure synnes: for even we forgeve every man that traspaseth vs, and ledde vs not into temptacio, butt deliver vs from evyll. Amen.
These translations over time only go to illustrate that language in any land does develop, and that an accurate translation that is able to convey the meaning of the original text is vital if we are to retain our roots with the early-Church and to be able to convey the same truths as were handed down by Christ to the Apostles.
What is important to understand about all this is that we need a translation that we can rely on to be literal in its translation of the original Hebrew and Greek. There will always be arguments about interpretation, but that is why the Church sends people off to theological colleges and seminaries so that they can explain the meaning to God’s People and so equip the saints for the work of ministry. That is why all this is important: you have a role to play in spreading the story of God’s revelation of himself and to do that you need to be equipped, and to be equipped you need good and reputable Biblical Scholars and Translators to do the work and who themselves equip Bishops and priests to equip the laity. However, most lay people haven’t got time to learn all this stuff so they rely on Bishops and priests to help them. Yes there will be lay people who have the time to learn and so they can and should be able, but every Christian needs help to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them. The translation of the Scriptures into the Common tongue has been going on since AD 400 and will continue to go on and the need for it to be interpreted correctly and accurately will go on too, so that each generation will be able to bear faithful witness to the Gospel of Christ both in word and deed.
2nd Sunday of Lent – The Translation
One of the major problems we face in trying to grapple in our minds with the Teaching of the Church is that much of what we were taught in schools was taught either by teachers who did RE because no one else would do it or by teachers who really didn’t know their subject. Occasionally matters were really bad and we got a teacher who fell into both categories. There was another problem and that was that what was taught was according to an agreed version, and to a certain degree this affected the study of history too. I well remember a conversation with a history teacher a few years ago who rattled out the old line of “Henry VIII: good and bad, Mary Tudor: bad, Elizabeth 1st: good.” I said that it wasn’t quite as simple as that and he said “Ah, you’ve been reading 'The Stripping of the Altars' and stuff by Scarisbrick, and yes they are right, but for the purposes of exams: Henry was good and bad, Mary was bad and Elizabeth was good."
Now if those of us who are well into our middle-age were taught RE poorly imagine what it is like today when it is even more difficult to get people to teach it.
What has all that got to do with today’s theme regarding the Scriptures, you might think? Well, I guess like me most of you were taught at school that one of the major problems in the mediaeval Church was the row over the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, that is local languages. This we were told was because the bishops and priests didn’t want people finding out what they already knew, because knowledge was power and that this in turn was one of the contributory factors in bringing about the Reformation. In reality the matter was, as is usually the case, not quite so simple. There was a very real fear that if the Bible was readable by everyone that it would be misinterpreted and to be honest I think anyone could acknowledge that this has been proved true over the last 500 years. The Church at the time wanted to safeguard the interpretation of Scripture rather than its translation and that is proved by the fact that translations into common tongues had been going on since earliest times.
The Scriptures were originally written in Hebrew and Greek with parts of the Old Testament being written in Aramaic. But were any of us ever told at school that in the 56 years before Martin Luther translated it into German in 1522 eighteen translations had been made in Germany and yet somehow this is considered one of Luther’s crowning achievements. Furthermore translations were made into Italian in 1471, Dutch in 1478 and French in 1479. If we go back in time to AD 400 we will see a translation, by St Jerome, into a common tongue: Latin. Some of you may have heard of the Vulgate version of the Bible – Vulgate is Latin for “Common” for Latin in that era was the common tongue of the Empire. As vernacular languages began to develop and take over from Latin the Bible was one of the first books to be translated and were common throughout Europe before the Reformation. Not something that we were taught at school!
Having the Bible translated was not the main problem – making sure it was a correct translation and the interpretation of it were.
There is an old Latin saying which says “Omnis traductor traditor” which means “Every translator is a traitor.” What this is trying to say is that there is no such thing as an accurate translation. It has been suggested that a new translation is needed every thirty years or so, but most good translations try to express a literal word for word translation. This will usually mean a more traditional style of language and some involved sentence structure. Our Bibles fall into this category. Some translations try to give the meaning in a way that is engaging and the Good News Version is one such translation, but most scholars would question whether it was an accurate translation. The Living Bible is a complete paraphrase and should be avoided at all costs.
Now I could take you on a “Cooks’ Tour” of the history of the translation of the Bible (and of the large number of translations available today) but that would take far too long and I doubt would be very beneficial, but did you know that the following ancient English Saints used various parts of the Bible translated into English: St Augustine, St Wilfred, St Caedmon and the Venerable Bede? Incidentally, so did King Alfred the Great. You will have all no doubt heard of the Lindisfarne Gospels which are handwritten in Anglo-Saxon – you can see it in the British Museum.
If anything the resurgence, after a 1000 years, of reading the Biblical texts in the original Hebrew and Greek were what precipitated a demand for more thorough English translations, as biblical scholars and others realised that the language had developed and that the translations were out of date. Interestingly, we were all told at school about the problems that John Wycliffe caused with his English translation, but it was never printed until 1850 and today we would not recognise it as English as our language has developed considerably. I have put up at the back of Church the English translations of the “Our Father” in the Lindisfarne Gospels and those by John Wycliffe and William Tyndale (included here for online readers):
Lindisfarne Gospels (about 950 – Old English / Anglo-Saxon):
fader gehalgad sie noma oin tocymaeo ic oin half usene daeghuaemlice sel us eghuelc daege fgef us synna usra gif faestlice aec pe fgefaes eghuelc scyldge us fgef ne usic onlaed ou in costunge.
Wycliffe Bible (1382 – Middle English):
Fadir, halewid be thi name. Thi kingdom come to. Zyue to vs to day oure eche days breed. And forzyue to vs oure synnes, as and we forzyuen to eche owynge to vs. And leed not vs in to temptacioun.
Tyndale New Testament (1525 – early modern English):
Oure father which arte in heve, hallowed be thy name. Lett thy kingdom come. They will be fulfillet, even in erth as it is in heven. Oure dayly breed geve us this daye. And forgeve vs oure synnes: for even we forgeve every man that traspaseth vs, and ledde vs not into temptacio, butt deliver vs from evyll. Amen.
These translations over time only go to illustrate that language in any land does develop, and that an accurate translation that is able to convey the meaning of the original text is vital if we are to retain our roots with the early-Church and to be able to convey the same truths as were handed down by Christ to the Apostles.
What is important to understand about all this is that we need a translation that we can rely on to be literal in its translation of the original Hebrew and Greek. There will always be arguments about interpretation, but that is why the Church sends people off to theological colleges and seminaries so that they can explain the meaning to God’s People and so equip the saints for the work of ministry. That is why all this is important: you have a role to play in spreading the story of God’s revelation of himself and to do that you need to be equipped, and to be equipped you need good and reputable Biblical Scholars and Translators to do the work and who themselves equip Bishops and priests to equip the laity. However, most lay people haven’t got time to learn all this stuff so they rely on Bishops and priests to help them. Yes there will be lay people who have the time to learn and so they can and should be able, but every Christian needs help to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them. The translation of the Scriptures into the Common tongue has been going on since AD 400 and will continue to go on and the need for it to be interpreted correctly and accurately will go on too, so that each generation will be able to bear faithful witness to the Gospel of Christ both in word and deed.
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