Bible

Unlike the entry Religion, which offers a panoramic view of the field of religious translation in general (briefly mentioning, of course, Bible translation), this entry focuses on the translation of the Jewish-Christian Bible (Old and New Testament).

Since Bible translation is a communicative activity, the entry is structured according to an adapted version of the Lasswell formula of communication (Lasswell 1948). After a general introduction about the present statistics of Bible translation as of November 2022, we will first classify Bible translations according to their initiators and authorship, making a distinction between anonymous or committee translations, team translations, and translations made by individual authors (Who translates?). The next sections deal with questions of the canon and the contents of editions of Bible translations (What is translated?), before going into the information on the addressed audience offered by forewords and version information (For whom is the Bible translated?). The definition of the addressed audience determines the ways in which Bible translations are distributed, e.g., in printed books or brochures, through digital media or in oral form like sound or sign language interpretation or Biblical Storying (Through which channel is the translation transmitted?). Further sections will analyse the places where translation is carried out (Where is the Bible translated?) and offer a brief overview of the history of Bible translation (When is the Bible translated?). In the New Testament itself, we find passages dealing with translation, and in the so-called Great Commission (Matthew 18:18-20), Jesus commands his disciples to teach his words “to all nations”, which definitely implies some kind of translation. The next section will touch on the different methods and strategies used in Bible translation (How is the Bible translated?). Last, but not least, from a functionalist viewpoint it is most important to ask for the aim of the translation process (For which purpose is the Bible translated?). It is a well-known fact that Christianity is a missionary religion, but translations of the Bible are equally important for study and research, homily and teaching, and for the conservation and stabilization of languages threatened with extinction. The entry ends with a brief overview of some topics for research and with a bibliography of the cited sources.