Glory to Jesus Christ!

Hello everyone! I was checking out the Orthodox Study Bible on Amazon and I'm confused about something. I have heard criticisms of the KJV translation of the Bible, so why is the NT a KJV translation and not an Orthodox translation? I mean the Catholic Church has it's own translations. Why is there not a truly Orthodox translation?

If there is what is it called? What would you guys use as the best Bible for Orthodox study?

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

The Orthodox Study Bible has the NKJV New Testament and is published by a Protestant publishing house and distributed by Conciliar Press. The project was driven by Evangelical converts to Orthodoxy, who run Conciliar Press, and my impression is that they carried a fondness for the KJV, NKJV Bible with them into Orthodoxy. The project, as it was carried out, continues to puzzle me.

With all the great minds at Holy Cross, St. Vladimir's, Holy Trinity and other Orthodox seminaries and academic institutions, there is definitely enough "brain power" to produce a fully authentic English-language Orthodox translation of the Sacred Scriptures. I am not sure why that has never been done.

Because, push come to shove, a good translator is humble enough to rely on those who have gone before him. The NKJV translation in the OSB has been amended where necessary to bring it eliminate a few tendentious passages, but 99+% of it was perfectly acceptable as it was. Why reinvent the wheel (those who think they can make a better wheel need only look at the funny looking tires on the RDL). They did produce their own translation of the LXX Old Testament, which is quite good in its own right.

God doesn't really care about the affiliation of the translator--He's more interested in whether the translator is competent. God, for instance, is not happy at all with the New American Bible, for all that it was published by the Catholic Church. And there are plenty of really lousy Orthodox translations, both of Scripture and Liturgy, which God also doesn't like very much. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure He's happy with the OSB.

That's mighty proud of you to assume what God does and does not like.

I don't disagree that there are plenty of awful translations out there, and the NAB certainly leaps to the front of the list, I just find the OSB project confusing. Perhaps it is silly of me to expect something like a pan-Orthodox English language project on the Scriptures.

Arguments against re-inventing the wheel make perfect sense, but Orthodoxy seems (to me) to have a built in disdain for anything coming from outside Orthodoxy and I would have expected an unequivocally Orthodox translation project to have been completed long before now.

Translating the Scriptures is a less daunting task that many make it out to be. Msgr. Ronald Knox did a pretty darn good job, all by himself, about 50 years ago. He was certainly an accomplished academic, but he was just one man.

It took many years for the wonderful notes and commentary; if they started from scratch there would still be nothing published. For at least 95 percent of laypeople, the NKJV is just fine. It has become my primary source for scripture.

Tried it, have you?



He also borrowed heavily from existing translations.

I translated the Gospel of John in college, but that is beside the point.

The point is/was all about a pan-Orthodox effort, but forget it.

Greetings,

Certainly the OSB Old Testament offers the only published English translation of Rhalf's LXX I know of. Since Rhalf's has for many years been the scholarly standard LXX, the OSB Old Testament is useful to me. I couldn't care less about the ecclesiastical views of its translators.

As one utterly convinced of the Byzantine Majority GNT, I'm not really a fan of the NKJV. But that is another discussion altogether.

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It was a Pan-Orthodox effort. They just didn't do it the way you wanted.

I would tend to disagree with that.

The text for the New Testament in the Authorized Version (i.e. KJV) of the Bible is seen as adhering closest to the Byzantine text itself, and therefore has been the preferred English language translation.

Aside from that, I think the English-speaking world needs just one Bible, and of all the different translations, the KJV comes closest to being that, having shaped and informed the English language for the past four hundred-odd years. We need it as a source of cultural unity, as well as to provide us all with a common frame of reference when we speak of God, so that we can all understand each other.

I think the KJV would make a terrible scripture for unity of english speaking people. It was created by King james in 1620 for political reasons when he was putting forth his ideas of the divine right of the monarchy as paralleling the power and rights of divinity.

it's not even a translation from the original, but is a translation from the latin.

What???? Can you point out how it is tilted towards putting forth the idea of divine right? He did tell the translators not to introduce some of the translational bias that had come in through other texts that were products of the Reformation. That actually makes it *more* suitable to use.

It was also not translated from Latin, but from Greek and Hebrew.

The King James Version was first published in AD 1611. It was a reactionary version created to compete with the Reformer's "Geneva Bible" which contained a commentary quite critical of monarchies in general and the Latin Church in particular.

King James was very anxious to have the new version completed, so that he placed a short timeline on his "translators". The Anglican Church was quite happy with their Bishop's Bible of 1568, so the KJV translators essentially "edited" that one to produce the 1611 version in time for King James. Large portions of the KJV are in fact the work of William Tyndale not the 1611 "translators".

I think we can thank God for what the Reformers and James got us. Before those translations, layman could not personally own a Bible. The scriptures were the property of the Church and read in the churches.

With the Geneva, mass printings and wide distrubution became available by 1615 so that the Puritains carried copies with them to the New World on the Mayflower. Eventually the KJV was also mass published to compete. The result is today anybody in a free society can own a Bible and read it at will.

We wouldn't even be having this discussion if not for those awful Reformers in Geneva.

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Here is an interesting article by Very Reverend Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes of Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Boise, ID that goes into much of what this thread is discussing. Why is there no "standard Orthodox Bible", which the best English translation to use is in his opinion, and many other tangential but worthwhile topics related to the Bible from an Eastern perspective.

http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/scripturesinthechurch.htm



The quote/article is circa 2000, FYI.

I am partial to the KJV also because I love that style of the English language, although I realize it is not as assessable to others.

The OSB, of course, uses the NKJV but is seemingly guarded against Orthodox criticisims of the NKJV (having been a largely Evangelical American update to the KJV) making it aim to be contemporary enough to not require familiarity with the Elizabethan of the KJV but not also not "evangelicized" by the NKJV translation.

Considering the alternatives, I find that tough to beat.

What do you guys (who are aware of these translations) think of the Navarre Bible or the RSV-CE? A reason I wonder about the use of the KJV is because of articles like this:

http://www.catholic.com/library/Bible_Translations_Guide.asp

Also, I read that the OSB "fixes" parts of the KJV to correct some of it's Protestant slant. Can anyone show me a difference in the OSB's KJV and the KJV ?

Thank you,

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

I also prefer the English of the KJV as well as the Douai-Rheims. I've never attended an Orthodox Liturgy, and was wondering if they still make use of this style? Judging from the Jordanville prayer book I assume they do, which would be great. I would think it adds a higher dimension of reverence and solemnity. I wish Catholic (both Roman and Eastern) liturgies in English would use it, but I think to try that now would cause riots!

I also like the English of the KJV but that's because it is what I spent my youth reading and memorizing scripture. I'n not someone who can judge the beauty of the actual English used.

I disagree here. Most people find it more "reverential" because they hear great dramatists' works like Shakespeare in that style. But it's important to note that it was simply how plays and works of literature (KJV) were written in that time. There was nothing "reverential" about that style at that time. It's only perceived that way by us now because our reverence for those works of art has juxtaposed onto the vernacular they used.

What I would prefer to read a Bible in is one thing, but the Word in Church I believe should strive to be both accurate and easily understood, as it was then.

I wasn't condemning the current form of English used. I believe the liturgy is beautiful as it is. I only meant that I think it would be even MORE beautiful with a KJV style English in my opinion. We all have our own particular tastes, so who can accurately judge what is objectively more beautiful on any given subject?

desertman,

I apologize for the tone that part took. I did not mean it in that way.

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

I understand your point, but I can honestly say Shakespeare has had absolutely no influence on me. And I would say that yes, if the Liturgy were recited in that fake, exaggerated, pompous English accent that most bad actors use when performing Shakespeare, it would be horrendous! But if it were chanted modestly and calmly with reverence, I think it would be quite beautiful.

But as I also said, I'm perfectly content with modern English in the Liturgy.

Don't worry 'bout it!
Have a great night!

Fr. Thomas Hopko on 'How to Read the Bible'

No English translation can have better credibility than the original language textual tradition it is based upon.

I looked long and hard to find authentic printed Greek texts of the New Testament and Greek Seventy (LXX) according to the historical manuscript traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church. Really, I did. But to my dismay, I found such has never been published and I think it probably never will be.

All Byzantine Orthodox Greek New Testament manuscripts up to the 15th century omit the so-called Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7-8). The passage was in the Latin Vulgate, but not any Byzantine Greek manuscript. Erasmus included the passage in his 1525 printed Greek New Testament apparently grafted in from Latin manuscripts in his possession. It seems that subsequent to 1525 the Greek Orthodox simply chose to adopt Erasmus' printed text including the Comma as their official printed edition, thus forsaking their centuries old manuscript tradition that had preserved the authentic Greek New Testament since antiquity.

Thus understanding the text critical theory behind it, I feel the modern Protestant so-called "Majority Text" GNT is much closer to the Byzantine Orthodox manuscript tradition than the official Orthodox printed Textus Receptus of today is.

Even the official Orthodox printed edition of the Greek Seventy is not the same as the Orthodox manuscript tradition. The Apostoliki Diakonia LXX edition is by to its own testimony merely a back edited version of Alfred Rhalfs' 1935 "Septuaginta". I find the Apostoliki Diakonia's back editing seems rather imperfectly executed.

So for better or worse, I now use Rhalfs' instead. At least there was a degree of transparency in Rhalfs' method. He also included a useful textual apparatus. The new Gottingen Septuagint is too expensive for my blood. So I am likely to continue using Rhalf's for the forseeable future.

That is the way I see it anyway.


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