God's Word
TRANSLATION
God's Word
TRANSLATION
The translation of the Holy Scriptures makes a fascinating study. Translation is a process for which we are all grateful and to which we are all indebted. For example: We are writing in English and quoting Scripture in English. You are either reading it in its original English, or perhaps in some other modern language. Yet, at the time the Bible was written, none of these modern languages existed.
How many of us would remain unlearned in Scripture if it were available to us only in its original tongues of Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek! The contemplation of the translation of the Bible generates gratitude in the heart. We realize that without it we would, in all likelihood, live and die never having read of the God who loves us, sent His Son to die for us, and waits for our response to Him.
In the last lesson we took great pains to stress that the canon of the Old Testament was a Hebrew language canon (with some Aramaic), and the New Testament canon was in the Greek language. This does not imply that the “test of canon” was a language test. It simply emphasizes that the Biblical Scriptures involved writings originally penned in those languages – no others. This declaration needs to be analyzed carefully since subsequent history seems to take issue with it.
It was stated earlier that the Hebrew Scriptures were gathered, arranged, and considered virtually complete by the time of Christ. The Jews had returned from captivity after the Persians had conquered the Babylonian Empire and followed a foreign policy of allowing captive peoples to return to their homelands. In Judah, the Jews continued the work of completing and assembling the Hebrew Bible. However, before this was finished, the Persians were conquered by the Greeks under the command of Alexander the Great. The Jews came under Greek rule. Eventually, the Jews were profoundly influenced by their exposure to “all things Greek,” but especially to language and culture. When Alexander died in 323 B.C., his generals struggled for his conquered lands. Eventually, General Ptolemy Lagi controlled Egypt. He launched a kingly Greek dynasty there, beginning in about 315 B.C. He was succeeded by Ptolemy Philadelphus II in 283 B.C.
The (LXX) Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) came out of this context. Alexandria, that great city of Greek culture and learning. This translation was originally well received by Greek-speaking Jews who were scattered far and wide in lands conquered by the Greeks. Also, it was the “Bible” that Jesus, a Jew, usually referred to in its tripartite form and from which He and His apostles, also Jews, quoted in their ministry and apostolic (New Testament) writings.
It is well known that a flood of Jewish literature classified as apocryphal was written during the second and first centuries before Christ. “Apocrphal” is an adjective describing the noun “apocrypha.” Basically, it describes writings of dubious authenticity. Basically, the “apocrypha” refers to books included in the LXX and Vulgate but excluded from the Hebrew Bible and Protestant canon. There are a few exceptions to this dating because the date of writing for some of the documents is difficult to determine. Some were written in Hebrew or Aramaic; others were written in Greek. This body of literature included themes on wisdom, ethics, history, religion, and fiction. The individual books varied in value and literary form. For example: 1 Maccabees has proven to be a reasonably reliable history of the Jews during the intertestamental age. In Bel and the Dragon one finds a fanciful tale of how Daniel overpowers an evil dragon by stuffing down his throat cakes of pitch, fat, and hair until he bursts open!
Generally speaking, these writings demonstrated a state of malaise which understandably pervaded the Jewish communities of the Diaspora (“Diaspora” is the term often used to refer to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile). They bolstered the people with stories of courage and bravery; they spoke of high ethics and morality; they called the people to a faithful, godly life with warnings and admonitions. Almost every literary device was used to build stability, perseverance, optimism, and a sense of community in spite of an environment which was often very disruptive and harsh.
It is striking that among the fifteen books of the Apocrypha there was no prophetic cry about the future from the writers' perspectives. Even in the “prophetic” books of Baruch and The Letter of Jeremiah, the prophetic element concerned past pronouncements which had been fulfilled. For example: “For thou hast set they anger and thy wrath upon us, as thou didst declare by thy servants the prophets, saying: ‘Thus says the Lord …’” (Baruch 2:21-21a).
As the manuscripts of the (LXX) Greek Old Testament began to circulate, the apocryphal scrolls of which we have been speaking began to travel about with them. Before the codex form came into use, documents were individually distributed in scroll form. Thus it is conceivable that, for example, the Torah scroll, originally in Hebrew, could be carried in the same box as Ecclesiasticus, probably translated into Greek. No implication of canonicity would be assumed for Ecclesiasticus, simply because it accompanied the Torah, a collection that had been accepted as canonical for centuries. Little “home libraries” were probably no more than clay urns into which scrolls could be stood on end to protrude from the top for easy retrieval. Thus, scrolls were often carried together which varied greatly in worth. “A book with pages in the form familiar to us was not used in New Testament times, though this kind of book (known technically as a codex) made its appearance not long after the end of the apostolic age and quickly became popular in Christian circles” (F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments).
As the New Testament in Greek emerged, its documents were shared among the congregations of Christians (Colossians 4:16) along with the Septuagint. Since the church began among the Jews and continued to have an impact on Jews, it is not surprising that many of the manuscripts we have been speaking of as apocryphal were also circulated and read with appreciation, especially among the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians. In fact, some Christians, including church leaders (e.g., Augustine of Hippo), eventually accepted them as inspired.
However, in non-Christian Jewish circles there was a reaction to the Greek Septuagint. First, it contained apocryphal books which, although written by Jews, were never a part of the sacred Hebrew Scriptures. Second, those Scriptures of the Greek Old Testament, and the apocryphal works, were being used to confute the Jews in Jewish/Christian debates. These events either precipitated, or were concurrent with, the development of a standard Hebrew Bible beginning about the close of the first century, A.D.
This text was without vowels, as such, which was characteristic of old Hebrew. However, some consonants were being used as vowels at this stage in the development of Hebrew. This text became the base upon which the Masoretic Jewish sages developed the great Masoretic text, fully vocalized and elaborately annotated and marked with various signs to safeguard its accuracy (“Masoretic Sages” = Jewish scholars competent in producing a vast bulk of textual criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures Masorah. Their critical work on the Hebrew Bible was an on- going project that continued from about 1600 A.D. into the middle of the 10th century). This is the text which was eventually recognized as the Hebrew Bible. It became the standard text from which many translations were made through the centuries.
Well, what about Apocrypha books found in the Septuagint (LXX) Greek Old Testament? Were they canonical? Did they “stand the test”? We have already learned the canon concerned original Hebrew and Aramaic in the Old Testament and Koine Greek in the New Testament. Our discussion of translation is not to move away from canon, but to stress the complexities that translations sometimes inserted into the process of forming the Bible as canon. The Apocryphal books were not canonical. They did not “stand the test.”
The Hebrew Bible went through four stages of development similar to the four stages we noted in the emergence of the New Testament canon. From the first, the Hebrews had texts which were undisputed. Then, there came disputed works, including those circulated with the LXX. Third, spurious texts were rejected. Finally, after the test of canonicity was applied that eliminated the disputed books which could not stand the text and the spurious books, the standardized text of the Hebrew Bible was fixed and became the ground-form text of the great Masoretic (traditional) Hebrew Bible mentioned earlier.
There is evidence to support the contention that the books of the Apocrypha never had a legitimate place in either the Hebrew or Greek Old Testament. Some of these evidences are as follows:
Josephus was a Jewish historian of the first century A. D. who wrote in Greek. He stressed emphatically that the Jews had “only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all time, and are justly believed to be divine” (Against Apion i.8. His list of twenty-two books, instead of the expected twenty-four, was due to slightly different combination and arrangement of the books).
We all know that Jesus referred often to the Old Testament in His teaching ministry (E.g., Matthew 22:29-32 and Exodus 3:6; Mark 4:11-12 and Isaiah 6:9-10; Luke 18:18-20 and Deuteronomy 5:16-20; John 13:18 and Psalm 41:9). His apostles bolstered their preaching and writing with frequent use of the Old Testament (E.g., [Peter: Acts 3:22-23; Deuteronomy 18:18- 19]; [Paul: Acts 13:33; Psalm 2:27]). It is obvious that the preaching and teaching of the Gospel included direct and persistent use of the sacred Scriptures (E.g., [Steven: Acts 7:49; Isaiah 66:1- 2a]; [Philip: Acts 8:30-35; Isaiah 53:7ff.]).
It is a self-evident fact that the New Testament is saturated with Old Testament allusions, references, and quotations from the Old Testament. In light of all of this, it is very significant that there is not a single direct quotation or reference in the New Testament to any of the fifteen books of the Apocrypha. The obvious inference is that Jesus, His apostles, and all the New Testament writers did not accept the Apocrypha as God-breathed (inspired) documents. Therefore, they were not authoritative.
A reading of the Targums yields the same conclusion. “Targum” means “translation, paraphrase, interpretation.” Targums were Jewish Aramaic renderings of the Old Testament to be used primarily in synagogue worship. Most Jews no longer spoke Hebrew by the time the synagogue system came into being. Therefore, these Aramaic translations, following the reading of the sacred text in Hebrew, gave the worshipers a better understanding of God’s Word. Almost all of the Old Testament books eventually had Targums. However, there is not a single extant Targum on any book of the Apocrypha. Again, the logical conclusion is that the Jews rejected them. They were not inspired of God.
After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army in 70 A.D., the Jews were allowed to establish a center at Jamnia on the northern border of Judah about four miles from the Mediterranean Sea. Here the discussions about the Hebrew Scriptures took on special significance in light of the Roman overthrow, the destruction of the sacred Temple, and the expulsion of the Jews from what was left of Jerusalem.
In about 90 A.D., after much deliberation, the affirmation of the Hebrew sages was that the Hebrew canon did, indeed, consist of the material we have today in the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament – no more, no less.
However, many books of the Apocrypha later circulated with the LXX. For that reason some Christians in the early centuries of the church thought they were a valid part of the Old Testament. However, the books of the Apocrypha were not then, and never have been, a valid part of the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures.
The church never accepted the Apocrypha as authoritative when the final consensus about the canon of the Bible was expressed. The first written pronouncement of the closed canon as we know it today was that of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, in 367 A.D. In his “Festal Letter” for that year, he listed, with slightly different classifications, all the thirty-nine books we have today. There was one exception. For unknown reasons, he did not list Esther, which had been considered and confirmed as canonical at Jamnia. He also listed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. The evidence above, though not exhaustive, makes it clear that the books of the Apocrypha were never in the Hebrew Bible. It is also clear that the very consensus of the early church that fixed the Biblical canon was the same consensus that rejected the Apocrypha.
However, several books of the Apocrypha continued to be held in high esteem. As was stated earlier, they circulated with the LXX (Greek Old Testament). The LXX was important because it was a translation from Hebrew texts which antedated the revised Hebrew text emerging after the Jamnia pronouncement. This post-Jamnia revised Hebrew Bible became the base for the great Masoretic Hebrew Bible, which, of course, did not contain the Apocrypha.
Jerome was commissioned by bishop Damasus of Rome in 382 A.D. to produce a Lain revision of the Bible. This was Damasus response to a situation concerning the Bible we have not touched on. The Old Latin texts of the Bible that had been produced up to that time were usually quite inferior and needed revision badly. Although Damasus died in 384 A.D., Jerome continued working. His work expanded beyond revising the Old Latin. It included translation of texts into Latin from the original Biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
He completed translating the Hebrew Bible in 405 A.D. The work was long and arduous. Jerome knew Latin and Greek well. However, he had spent five years (374 A.D. – 379 A.D.) in the desert near Antioch in general study and tutoring in Hebrew from a Jewish Rabbi. In 386 A.D. he settled in Bethlehem and there continued his work to completion. This, along with his other work on the New Testament, comprised the Latin Vulgate Bible that held sway in Christendom for almost 1,000 years.
It is important to note that Jerome drew a distinction between the canon of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. He translated some of the apocryphal books but left others in their Old Latin condition. In his Preface to these books, he stated they were not to be the basis for establishing authority or doctrine. However, he did consider some of them to be edifying reading.
Jerome’s contemporary, Augustine of Hippo, North Africa, was convinced that the Apocrypha of which we have been speaking was inspired of God. He was a very learned and influential church leader. His impact on church history and theology has been great from his day until now. No doubt it was partially due to his influence and the reluctant willingness of Jerome to include the books of the Apocrypha in the Latin Vulgate, albeit as non-canonical, that caused these books to be closely associated with the Biblical books through the centuries.
Perhaps it would be safe to say that through the years the Apocrypha was ordinarily considered with either tolerance or rejection; but, by and large, canonicity was not usually a part of the evaluation given to these books. Those who were tolerant towards them saw some of them as beneficial for edification but not necessarily having doctrinal authority. Others objected to them having close association with Biblical books because they believed them to be inferior in quality.
This diversity of thought about the Apocrypha is evident by the way the books kept tagging along with the canonized Bible through the centuries. Sometimes they were appended at the end. Other Bibles had them sandwiched between the Old and New Testaments. Other translations interpolated portions of some of the books into the Biblical books with which they seemed to have some affinity. Even the number of books in the Apocrypha was often a matter of dispute.
The Reformation was characterized by a renewed interest in Biblical teachings. The efforts of John Wycliffe and his fellow workers in translating the Latin Vulgate Bible into English paved the way for further advances, such as Martin Luther’s German translation of the Scriptures. This new emphasis on placing the Bible into the hands of the common people in a language they could understand produced a crisis of authority.
Through the Middle Ages the Holy Roman Empire had been guided by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. These teachings had, in many instances, been enforced by subjugating secular powers, if necessary. Therefore, the shift of authority from the church to the Bible was a serious threat to the status quo.
As a result, the Roman Catholic Church launched a Counter-Reformation. Some major goals were; (1) To retain the loyalty of Roman Catholics; (2) launch internal reforms; (3) and win back the “deserters” by all means, including force. All of this required an authoritative stance. We mention three of the important planks in the new “platform of authority” which emerged during the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent was convened by Pope Paul III. It first met on December 13, 1545, and continued with lengthy interludes until December 4, 1563. The three important planks were: (1) The infallibility of the pope; (2) the insistence that church tradition, being inspired, is equal with Scripture, and that the rendering of the true sense and interpretation of both was the prerogative of the church; (3) and the pronouncement that the books of the Apocrypha, with the exception of the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras, were inspired of God and are therefore part of the sacred canon of Scripture.
This unwarranted and unilateral canonization of the Apocrypha by “divine fiat” is without precedent in the history of the Bible. As we have seen in the previous lesson and this one, the canon of the Bible was not arrived at by councilor decree. The canon came out of the consensus of the church after a long period of time. After the limits of the canon were fixed, church councils acknowledged that canon again and again.
Since the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church has admitted the Apocrypha was not originally a part of the Bible canon. However, the affirmation continues to be that the Apocrypha is now canonical because the Roman church says it is by way of the doctrine of infallibility. Precisely, the claim is that its inspiration was “discovered” by the church. This doctrine is articulated by two terms, “protocanonical” and “deuterocanonical”. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, “protocanonical” applies to the Biblical Scriptures without the Apocrypha; “Deuterocanonical” describes the Apocrypha as also canonical, that is, a “second canon.”
In previous lessons on the Bible, we have been reminded that the Bible is the result of God’s revelation to men, His inspiration of men, and His providence in bringing the Bible to its canonized state.
The discussions about the (LXX) Greek Old Testament and the (Latin) Vulgate as translations of the Bible from its original languages shows the great foundational importance of these translations in their time and for all subsequent Biblical studies.
Glossary For This Lesson: “Apocrayphal” is an adjective describing the noun “apocrypha.” Basically, it describes writings of dubious authenticity. Biblically, the “apocrypha” refers to books included in the LXX and Vulgate but excluded from the Hebrew Bible and Protestant canon.
“The books of the Apocrypha” are: 1 & 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach), Baruch, Prayer of Azariah & the Song of the three Holy Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer of Manasses, and 1 & 2 Maccabees. “Diaspora” is the term often used to refer to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile.
“Masoretic Sages” were Jewish scholars competent in producing a vast bulk of textual criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures (Masorah). Their critical work on the Hebrew Bible was an ongoing project that continued from about 600 A.D. into the middle of the 10th century.
“Taraum” means “translation, paraphrase, interpretation.” Targums were Jewish Aramaic renderings of the Old Testament to be used primarily in synagogue worship.
“The Council of Trent” was convened by Pope Paul III. It first met on December 13, 1545, and continued with lengthy interludes until December 4, 1563.
“Protocanonical”, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, applies to the Biblical Scriptures without the Apocrypha.
“Deuterocanonical”, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, describes the Apocrypha as also canonical, that is, a “second canon.”
(Unless noted, Bible translation used is the New American Standard Bible)
