The Bible has been translated into many languages. The Jewish Tanakh (almost identical to the Protestant Old Testament) was originally written in Hebrew, with the exception of some passages of Daniel, Ezra, and Jeremiah which are in Aramaic. The New Testament is widely agreed to have originally been written in Greek, although some scholars hypothesize that certain books (whether completely or partially) may have been written in Aramaic before being translated for widespread dissemination. One very famous example of this is the opening to the Gospel of John, which is argued to be, perhaps, a Greek translation of an Aramaic hymn.

The Bible continues to be the most translated book in the world. It is found in its entirety or in part in 2,377^[1] of the approximately 6,900 languages that exist. The Bible is now available in 665 languages in Africa, followed by 585 in Asia, 414 in Oceania, 404 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 209 in Europe, and 75 in North America. The United Bible Societies are presently assisting in Bible translation projects in some 600 languages. The Bible is available in whole or in part to some 98 percent of the world’s population.

A variety of approaches to translation have been used, including Formal equivalence (similar to literal translation[2]), Dynamic equivalence[3], Meaning-Based Translation[4], Idiomatic translation[5], and Paraphrase[6]. A great deal of debate occurs over which approach most accurately[7] communicates the message of the biblical languages source texts into target languages[8]. Despite these debates, however, many who study the Bible intellectually or devotionally find that selecting more than one translation approach is useful in interpreting and applying what they read. For example, a very literal translation may be useful for individual word or topical study, while a paraphrase may be employed for grasping initial meaning of a passage. Zondervan, one of the many bible publishers [9]has created this graphic showing where many popular English translations fall on the literal-to-paraphrase spectrum.

This page gives information about Bible translations in various languages, in alphabetical order by language. At the end of some of the sections you will find tables comparing the same verses in various translations.

The first Chinese Catholic Bible translation was started by a young franciscan friar named Gabriele Allegra, he began translating the Old Testament from the original Hebrew and Aramaic languages in 1935. 10 years later he recruited Frs Solanus Lee ofm, Antonius Lee ofm, Frs Bernardinus Lee ofm and Ludovicus Liu ofm in Beijing. However due to the Chinese civil war in 1948, the friars were forced to move the Studium Biblicum in Hong Kong. After 20 years efforts, the first Old Testament was published in 1954. In 1968 the New and Old Testaments were published in a single volume.

• Studium Biblicum Franciscanum
• Chinese Catholic Bible Wiki

The first complete translation was Jesuit Kasić's manuscript. The work was done from 1622 to 1637, but remained unpublished until 2000. It was in 1831 that the first published Croatian Bible appeared, translated by a Franciscan Matija Petar Katančić. After a few other versions, the most widely accepted and praised is modern language translation from 1968, the so called "Zagreb Bible", which is partially based on the Jerusalem Bible.

• Hrvatska Biblija on-line: Bible in Croatian-full text - translation: "Zagreb"

• Hrvatska Biblija - web download: Bible in Croatian-full text - translation: Dr Ivan Saric 1942.

The first translation of the whole Bible into Czech, based on the Latin Vulgate, was done in 1360. The Bible is called the "Bible of Dresden". This manuscript was lost during World War I. Many other translations followed this Bible of Dresden, and from the linguistic point of view they can be divided in four different redactions. The last one was finally printed.

The first printed Czech New Testament is the "New Testament of Dlabač", printed in 1487. The first printed complete Bible is the "Bible of Prague" from 1488. Another Czech Bible printed before the year 1501 is the "Bible of Kutná Hora" (printed in 1489).

All these texts were translated from the Vulgate.

The first translation from the original languages into Czech language was the Bible of Kralice, first published in years 1579 – 1593. The translation was done by the Unity of the Brethren. The third edition from 1613 is considered classical and is one of the most used Czech Bible translations.

The first translation into Dutch directly from Greek and Hebrew sources was the Statenvertaling. It was ordered by the States-General at the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618/19, and first published in 1637. It soon became the generally accepted translation for Reformed churches in the Netherlands and remained so well into the 20th century. It was supplanted to a large extent in 1951 by the NBG (Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap) translation, which still uses relatively old-fashioned language.

Modern language translations are Groot Nieuws Bijbel, Het Boek, the Roman Catholic Willibrordvertaling. In 2004, the NBV (Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling) translation appeared, which was produced by an ecumenical translation team, and is intended as an all-purpose translation for pulpit and home use; however, there has been much criticism on its accuracy.

Around the same time, there has also been much work on very literal, idiolect translations, such as the Naarden translation of 2004, Albert Koster's translation of the Old Testament, a work in progress since 1991, and the Torah translation of the Societas Hebraica Amstelodamensis.

• Statenvertaling: full text, including the Apocrypha. 1977 edition.

Main article(s): History of the English Bible

Partial translations of the Bible into English can be traced back to the end of the 7th Century. Over 450 versions have been created over time.

The initiator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof translated the entire Old Testament into Esperanto. A monograph by D. B. Gregor, La Esperanta traduko de la Malnova Testamento, compares Zamenhof's translation in some detail with a wide variety of major versions in other languages. A committee, consisting primarily of British clergy and scholars, was formed to translate the New Testament and review Zamenhof's translation for eventual publication by the British and Foreign Bible Society. The New Testament was published in 1910. A translation of the entire Bible, often referred to in Esperanto as the "Londona Biblio", was published in 1926. The most recent printing of the "Londona Biblio", issued in 2003, includes the Berveling translation of the Roman Catholic Deuterocanonical Books (see next paragraph).

An Esperanto organization devoted to Biblical and Oriental Studies, the Internacia Asocio de Bibliistoj kaj Orientalistoj, beginning in the 1960s, attempted to organize the translation of a new, ecumenical Esperanto Bible version, however, this project eventually lapsed, with only Gerrit Berveling's translation of Numbers published (Nombroj, 1999) published. Dr. Berveling (a Dutch Free Church theologian and classical linguist) has, however, translated most of a new version of the New Testament, eschewing the syntactically overliteral tendencies of the B&FBS version, which is perhaps most akin among English versions to the Revised Version of 1881. His gospels have been published as La bona mesaĝo de Jesuo: laŭ X [X = Mateo, Marko, Luko, Johano, all 1992], and the first volume of his projected New Testament has appeared as Leteroj de Paŭlo kaj lia skolo (2004). He has also published a three-volume edition of the Deuterocanonical Books (La duakanonaj libroj), the first two of which (those included in the Roman Catholic Canon) are incorporated in the latest printing of the Londona Biblio.

There have also been other translations of specific books of the Bible and of shorter portions.

Online text of La Sankta Biblio ("Londona" text)

The first Finnish translation of the New Testament was Mikael Agricola's Se Wsi Testamenti Somexi (The New Testament in Finnish), which was translated from Greek originals into Finnish 1548. Agricola is today considered the father of the Finnish written language..

The first translation of the whole Bible was the so-called Vanha kirkkoraamattu (Old Church Bible), titled Biblia, Se on: Coco Pyhä Ramattu Suomexi. This edition was translated by committee led by Bishop Erik Rothovius 1638-1641, and published 1642. It was revised 1683-1685 (Florinus).

As the Finnish written and spoken language evolved during the centuries and literacy became commonplace also amongst the laypeople, need for a new edition arose. The so-called Biiblia or Vuoden 1776 raamattu (Year 1776 Bible) was published in 1776. It was the first edition meant not only to ecclestical but also to domestic use, and first written in Modern Finnish. It was revised 1859. The 1776 Bible is the version in use by certain sects even today.

Again a new translation was needed in the early 20th century, and a committee fro translation was set 1911. It had its work ready 1933. Full edition of Bible was published in 1938. This edition is often referred as Vuoden 1938 kirkkoraamattu (year 1938 Church Bible). It was translated by the Finnish Lutheran Church, and intended to Lutheran use. As the translationary principle was "one source language word - one Finnish word", its text is very archaizing, and it uses dialectal terms obsolete even during the era. The 1938 edition consisted of Old Testament, deuterocanonicals and New Testament.

The latest official Finnish translation dates to 1992, the so-called Uusi kirkkoraamattu (New Church Bible). It is the first Finnish ecumenical edition; the translation committee consisted not only of the representants of the Finnish Lutheran Church, but also of academics and representants of Finnish Orthodox Church and Finnish Catholic Church, and is intended to use of all Christian denominations. the principle of 1992 edition is contextual translation; instead of verbatim translation, the contextes have been attempted to be translated as accurately as possible. The initial edition consisted of only New and Old Testament: the translation of the Old Testament deuterocanonicals were finished only 2004.

Of the non-official Finnish translations the most important is Uuden Maailman käännös (New World Translation) used by Jehovah's Wittnesses. The principle in translation of this edition has been same as on 1938 edition: as verbatim translation as possible. Unfortunately the translation of the "Uuden Maailman käännös" has been done from English instead of original Aramaic and Greek, making the edition somewhat inaccurate.

The first printed translation of the Bible into the French language was the work of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples in 1530 in Antwerp. This was substantially revised and improved in 1535 by Pierre Robert Olivétan. This bible, in turn, became the basis of the first French Roman Catholic bible, published at Leuven in 1550, the work of Nicholas de Leuze and François de Larben. Finally, the Port-Royal version, prepared by Antoine Lemaistre and his brother Louis Isaac Lemaistre, finished in 1695, achieved broad acceptance among both Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Many Francophone Protestants now use the Louis Segond version, which was finished in 1880, and revised substantially between 1975 and 1978.

Among Roman Catholics, the most notable contemporary French translation is La Bible de Jérusalem, available in English as The Jerusalem Bible, which appeared first in French in 1954 and was revised in 1973. Its copious but concise footnotes and apparatus have won respect among both Protestant and Catholic readers. This translation has served as the basis for versions in many other languages besides French.

The chief Jewish version of the Hebrew Scriptures in French is La Bible du rabbinat français, which was finished in 1906 and was revised in 1966.

The most important and influential of translations of the Bible into German is the translation of Martin Luther. The influence that Luther's translation had on the development of the German language is often compared to influence the KJV had on English. It is currently used in a revised version from 1986.

Another translation is the Catholic Einheitsübersetzung ("unified" or "unity translation"), so called because it was the first common translation used for all Catholic German-speaking dioceses. The text of the New Testament and the Psalms of the Einheitsübersetzung was agreed on by a committee of Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars, and therefore was intended to be used by both Roman Catholics and Protestants especially for ecumenical services, while the remainder of the Old Testament follows a Roman Catholic tradition. However, the Protestant Church of Germany refused to continue the cooperation for the current revision of the Einheitsübersetzung.

The only translation of the Bible into the extinct Gothic language was made by the bishop Ulfilas and is preserved in one hand-written copy, known as the Codex Argenteus.

In 1901, Alexandros Pallis translated the gospels in Modern Greek. The publishing of the translation in a newspaper caused riots in Athens, known as Evangelika (Ευαγγελικά).

A Hawaiian translation was done by New England Christian missionaries and the Reverend Hiram Bingham in the early 1800's. The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were translated in 1828. The rest of the New Testament was translated in 1832. The Old Testament was translated in 1839. The translation was revised in 1868. A new translation of the New Testament in Hawaiian Pidgin, titled Da Jesus Book, was published in 2000 by Wycliffe Bible Translators.

External link

• The Hawaiian Bible Project
• Hawaiian Bible joins modern age

Reference

Most of the information in this section comes from a phone inquiry by Wikipedian Joshua Holman to Jacquelyn Sapiie, Supervisor of Library Services at the American Bible Society on January 14, 2004.

The first significant Bible translations into Hungarian are as follows:

• Hussite Bible (probably 1436–1439, only fragments remained)
• New Testament (1541, János Sylvester): the first full New Testament in Hungarian
• Gáspár Károlyi's translation (also known as Vizsolyi Biblia and its translator as Károli, 1590, Protestant): the first complete version in Hungarian, which gained wide popularity and is occasionally used even today as the "classic" translation (similarly to the KJV in English)
  • Revised last time in 2003
• György Káldi's translation (1626, the first full Catholic version)
  • Revised in 1835, 1851, 1865, 1934, 1973, and 1997

• Review of the history of the Hungarian Bible editions (in Hungarian)
• Comparison of the existing Hungarian versions (in Hungarian)
• Hungarian Bible translations online (Protestant and Catholic)
• Károli's translation online

The first printed translation of the Bible into Italian was the Malermi Bible in 1471.

Parts of the bible have been translated into Klingon language - the artificial language spoken by Klingons in the fictional Star Trek universe.

John 3:16: toH qo' muSHa'pu'qu'mo' JoH'a', wa' puqloDDaj nobpu' ghaH 'ej ghaHbaq Harchugh vay', vaj not Hegh ghaH, 'ach yIn jub ghajbeH ghaH.

Klingon Translation Project

There were a number of piecework translations into Latin during the period of the early Church. Collectively, these versions are known as the Vetus Latina. In the Old Testament, they follow the Greek Septuagint closely, it being their usual source, and reproduce its variations from the Hebrew Masoretic Text. They were never rendered independently from the Hebrew or Greek; they vary widely in readability and quality, and contain many solecisms in idiom, some by the translators themselves, others from literally translating Greek language idioms into Latin.

All of these translations were made obsolete by St. Jerome's Vulgate version of the Bible. Jerome knew Hebrew, and revised and unified the Latin Bibles of the time to bring them into conformity with the Hebrew as he understood it. The liturgical Psalms, however, are often taken from the older Latin bibles.

As discussed in the Vulgate article, there are several different versions of the Vulgate: the Clementine Vulgate, the Stuggart Vulgate, the Nova Vulgata. These represent various attempts to either revise or modernise the Vulgate, or to recover Jerome's original text.

In the Protestant Reformation, Theodore Beza produced a new Latin version of the New Testament. Demand for a Latin Bible among Protestants declined steadily, and Beza's translation never achieved wide circulation.

The Bible was translated into the Manx language, a dialect of Gaelic, by a committee of clergy from the Isle of Man. The New Testament appeared in 1767, and the complete Bible in 1772.

The King James Bible has been translated, or adapted, into the gay language Polari by the Manchester branch of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The opening verses of Genesis read like this:

1:1 In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the nanti lucoddy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas. 3 And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle. 4 And Gloria vardad the sparkle, that it was bona: and Gloria medzered the sparkle from the munge. 5 And Gloria screeched the sparkle Day, and the munge he screeched nochy. And the bijou nochy and the morning were the una day.

The first complete translation to Romanian was done in 1688 (called "Biblia de la Bucureşti") by Radu and Şerban Greceanu with the help of Şerban Cantacuzino and Constantin Brâncoveanu.

Before the Greceanu brothers, have been other partial translation like the Slave-Roman Gospel (1551), Coresi's Gospel (1561), The Braşov Psalm Book (1570), Palia from Orăştie (1582), The New Testament of Alba Iulia (1648) and others.

In our days, two main translations are currently used in Romanian. The Orthodox churches use the "Biblia Sinodală" (Bible of the Holy Synod) version, the standard Romanian Orthodox Biblie translation, published with the blessings of Patriarch Teoctist, whileas Protestant denominations mainly use the more wide-spreaded translation of Dumitru Cornilescu first published in 1928. In 1989 "Biblia Cornilescu Revizuită" (Revised Cornilescu Version) appeared, which meant to get the existing translation closer to the original manuscripts, in a form grammatically corrected and adapted according to the evolution of the modern Romanian language.

The first complete translation from the originals into Spanish was published in 1569 (called "Biblia del Oso") by Casiodoro de Reina.

• Biblia Alfonsina, 1280.
• Biblia del Duque de Alba, 1430.
• Antiguo Testamento del rabino Salomón, 1420.
• Antiguo Testamento de traductor anónimo, 1420.
• Nuevo Testamento de Francisco de Enzinas, 1553.
• Nuevo Testamento de Juan Pérez de Pineda, 1556.
• Reina o "Biblia del Oso" (RV), 1569, reviewed in 1602 by Cipriano de Valera.
• Biblia del padre Scío de San Miguel, 1793.
• Versión Moderna, 1893.
• Biblia de Petisco y Torres Amat, 1825.
• Nuevo Testamento versión hispanoamericana, 1916.
• Biblia Nácar-Colunga, 1944.
• Biblia Bóver-Cantera, 1947.
• Nuevo Testamento de monseñor Straubinger, 1948.
• Nuevo Testamento traducción del Nuevo Mundo, 1963. Translation from English.
• Biblia de Jerusalén, 1966.
• Biblia traducción del Nuevo Mundo, 1967. Translation from English.
• Biblia de Editorial Labor, 1968.
• Biblia edición pastoral para Latinoamérica, 1972.
• La Biblia de editorial Herder, 1975.
• Nueva Biblia Española, 1976.
• Biblia Interconfesional, 1978.
• Dios Habla Hoy o Versión Popular (DHH), 1979.
• La Biblia al Día, 1979.
• Biblia el libro del pueblo de Dios, 1980.
• Nuevo Testamento de la Universidad de Navarra, 1983.
• Biblia de las Américas (BLA), 1986.
• Biblia, versión revisada por un equipo de traductores dirigido por Evaristo Martín Nieto. 1989.
• Biblia Casa de la Biblia, 1992.
• Biblia del Peregrino, 1993.
• Nuevo Testamento versión Recobro, 1994.
• Nueva Versión Internacional (NVI), 1999.
• Nuevo Testamento traducción de Pedro Ortiz, 2000.
• Nuevo Testamento la Palabra de Dios para Todos (PDT), 2000.
• Biblia traducción en lenguaje actual (TLA), 2003.
• Biblia la Palabra de Dios para Todos (PDT), 2005.

External link

• Versión la Palabra de Dios para todos (PDT)

In 862, a pair of monks named Saints Cyril and Methodius were commissioned by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to take the Gospel to Great Moravia. They translated the Bible and many liturgical service books into Slavonic, which was spoken in various dialects throughout much of Eastern Europe. Their translation was later used to evangelize Bulgaria and Kievan Rus in the tenth century. As there was no written form of Slavonic prior to their translation, they created what became known as the Glagolitic alphabet, loosely based on Greek, and their disciples derived from it the Cyrillic alphabet, which is used by Russian and other East European languages. The Slavonic used in their translation is now known as Old Church Slavonic and its later version as the Church Slavonic still used in liturgical services in Russian Orthodox and several other Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic churches.

Both Old and New Testaments were first translated to Slovene by Protestant writer and theologian Jurij Dalmatin. The translation was printed in Wittenberg, Germany in 1584 and was smuggled back to Slovenia hidden in barrels so that Catholic authorities could not discover it. The Slovenes thus became the 12th nation in the world with a complete Bible in their language, overtaking many much larger European nations. The Bible translation was the major achievement of Slovene Protestant literature.

Slovene Biblical Society

The first translation of parts of the Bible into Swahili was accomplished by 1868, with a complete New Testament translation following in 1879 and a translation of the whole Bible in 1890. Since that time, there have been several translations into different dialects of Swahili as spoken in different regions of East Africa; these include the Union translation published by the Bible Society of Tanzania in 1950 and the Swahili Common Language version.

Several translations to Swedish have been performed over the years. Until the reformation, a Latin Bible was used, but Gustav Vasa who converted Sweden to protestantism ordered the first translation into the Swedish tongue.

Several translations has been made since then, including:

• Gustav Vasas bibel - the original ordered by Gustav Vasa
• Karl XIIs bibel - ordered by Charles XII of Sweden
• Normalupplagan
• Helge Åkessons översättning
• 1917 års bibelöversättning - used in official churches until 2000
• Nya Världens bibelöversättning - by Jehovah's Witnesses
• David Hedegårds översättning - includes only the New Testament
• Bo Giertz översättning - includes only the New Testament
• Svenska folkbibeln
• Bibel 2000 - the latest official translation, including the Apocrypha of the Old Testament

External link

• Bibel 2000, full text

See Welsh Bible

The first translation of the Bible into Welsh was the New Testament translation of William Salesbury in 1567, closely followed by William Morgan's translation of the whole Bible in 1588. This occupies a similar place in the Welsh language to that of the King James Version in English. A new translation, y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd was published in 1988 and has largely replaced the William Morgan translation, although there is some disagreement as to the accuracy of the translation. Both versions are in very literary Welsh and there is still a need for a translation in a more colloquial register.

A revision of y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd (Revised New Welsh Bible) was released in March 2004.

External links

• Beibl Cymraeg Newydd (2004)
• Welsh language Bible of 1588 View digital images of the entire Bible online (digital images of the actual book printed in 1588).
• BBC news story on the Revised New Welsh Bible

1. ^ "A statistical summary of languages with the scriptures, Dec. 2004". February 9, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)

• "Versions of the Bible" by A.J. Maas. The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913.

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