Timeline of Bible Translation History. I have put this togather incorportating my studies, Justins Comentary and I can best remember. Let me know if I missed anything.
1,400 BC: The first written Word of God: The Ten Commandments delivered to Moses.
500 BC: Completion of All Original Hebrew Manuscripts which make up The 39 Books of the Old Testament.
200 BC: Completion of the Septuagint Greek Manuscripts which contain The 39 Old Testament Books AND 14 Apocrypha Books.
1st Century AD: Completion of All Original Greek Manuscripts which make up The 27 Books of the New Testament.
315 AD: Athenasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, identifies the 27 books of the New Testament which are today recognized as the canon of scripture.
382 AD: Jerome's Latin Vulgate Manuscripts Produced which contain All 80 Books (39 Old Test. + 14 Apocrypha + 27 New Test).
500 AD: Scriptures have been Translated into Over 500 Languages.
600 AD: LATIN was the Only Language Allowed for Scripture.
995 AD: Anglo-Saxon (Early Roots of English Language) Translations of The New Testament Produced.
1384 AD: Wycliffe is the First Person to Produce a (Hand-Written) manuscript Copy of the Complete Bible; All 80 Books.
1455 AD: Gutenberg Invents the Printing Press; Books May Now be mass-Produced Instead of Individually Hand-Written. The First Book Ever Printed is Gutenberg's Bible in Latin.
1516 AD: Erasmus Produces a Greek/Latin Parallel New Testament.
1522 AD: Martin Luther's German New Testament.
1526 AD: William Tyndale's New Testament; The First New Testament printed in the English Language.
1535 AD: Myles Coverdale's Bible; The First Complete Bible printed in the English Language (80 Books: O.T. & N.T. & Apocrypha).
1537 AD: Tyndale-Matthews Bible; The Second Complete Bible printed in English. Done by John "Thomas Matthew" Rogers (80 Books).
1539 AD: The "Great Bible" Printed; The First English Language Bible Authorized for Public Use (80 Books).
1560 AD: The Geneva Bible Printed; The First English Language Bible to add Numbered Verses to Each Chapter (80 Books).
1568 AD: The Bishops Bible Printed; The Bible of which the King James was a Revision (80 Books).
1609 AD: The Douay Old Testament is added to the Rheims New Testament (of 1582) Making the First Complete English Catholic Bible; Translated from the Latin Vulgate (80 Books).
1611 AD: The King James Bible Printed; Originally with All 80 Books. The Apocrypha was Officially Removed in 1885 Leaving Only 66 Books.
1782 AD: Robert Aitken's Bible; The First English Language Bible (KJV) Printed in America.
1791 AD: Isaac Collins and Isaiah Thomas Respectively Produce the First Family Bible and First Illustrated Bible Printed in America. Both were King James Versions, with All 80 Books.
1808 AD: Jane Aitken's Bible (Daughter of Robert Aitken); The First Bible to be Printed by a Woman.
1833 AD: Noah Webster's Bible; After Producing his Famous Dictionary, Webster Printed his Own Revision of the King James Bible.
1841 AD: English Hexapla New Testament; an Early Textual Comparison showing the Greek and 6 Famous English Translations in Parallel Columns.
1846 AD: The Illuminated Bible; The Most Lavishly Illustrated Bible printed in America. A King James Version, with All 80 Books.
1885 AD: The "English Revised Version" Bible; The First Major English Revision of the KJV.
1901 AD: The "American Standard Version"; The First Major American Revision of the KJV.
1971 AD: The "New American Standard Bible" (NASB) is Published as a "Modern and Accurate Word for Word English Translation" of the Bible.
1973 AD: The "New International Version" (NIV) is Published as a "Modern and Accurate Phrase for Phrase English Translation" of the Bible.
1982 AD: The "New King James Version" (NKJV) is Published as a "Modern English Version Maintaining the Original Style of the King James."
2002 AD: The English Standard Version (ESV) is Published as a translation to bridge the gap between the accuracy of the NASB and the readability of the NIV.
Old Testament
The following are brief snap shots of the beginning and ending of the Old Testament and the reasons for the first two translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Aramaic and Greek
• 1875 B.C. Abraham was called by God to the land of Canaan.
• 1450 B.C. The exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
Autographs
There are no known autographs of any books of the Old Testament. Below is a list of the languages in which the Old Testament books were written.
• 1450-1400 B.C. The traditional date for Moses' writing of Genesis-Deuteronomy written in Hebrew.
• 586 B.C. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews were taken into captivity to Babylon. They remained in Babylon under the Medo-Persian Empire and there began to speak Aramaic.
• 555-545 B.C. The Book of Daniel Chapters. 2:4 to 7:28 were written in Aramaic.
• 425 B.C. Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew.
• 400 B.C. Ezra Chapters. 4:8 to 6:18; and 7:12-26 were written in Aramaic.
Manuscripts
The following is a list of the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament that are still in existence.
• The Dead Sea Scrolls: date from 200 B.C. - 70 A.D. and contain the entire book of Isaiah and portions of every other Old Testament book but Esther.
• Geniza Fragments: portions the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, discovered in 1947 in an old synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, which date from about 400 A.D.
• Ben Asher Manuscripts: five or six generations of this family made copies of the Old Testament using the Masoretic Hebrew text, from 700-950 A.D. The following are examples of the Hebrew Masoretic text-type.
o Aleppo Codex: contains the complete Old Testament and is dated around 950 A.D. Unfortunately over one quarter of this Codex was destroyed in anti-Jewish riots in 1947.
o Codex Leningradensis: The complete Old Testament in Hebrew copied by the last member of the Ben Asher family in A.D. 1008.
Translations
The Old Testament was translated very early into Aramaic and Greek.
• 400 B.C. The Old Testament began to be translated into Aramaic. This translation is called the Aramaic Targums. This translation helped the Jewish people, who began to speak Aramaic from the time of their captivity in Babylon, to understand the Old Testament in the language that they commonly spoke. In the first century Palestine of Jesus' day, Aramaic was still the commonly spoken language. For example maranatha: "Our Lord has come," 1 Corinthians 16:22 is an example of an Aramaic word that is used in the New Testament.
• 250 B.C. The Old Testament was translated into Greek. This translation is known as the Septuagint. It is sometimes designated "LXX" (which is Roman numeral for "70") because it was believed that 70 to 72 translators worked to translate the Hebrew Old Testament in Greek. The Septuagint was often used by New Testament writers when they quoted from the Old Testament. The LXX was translation of the Old Testament that was used by the early Church.
1. The following is a list of the oldest Greek LXX translations of the Old Testament that are still in existence.
o Chester Beatty Papyri: Contains nine Old Testament Books in the Greek Septuagint and dates between 100-400 A.D.
o Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus each contain almost the entire Old Testament of the Greek Septuagint and they both date around 350 A.D.
The New Testament
Autographs
45- 95 A.D. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Pauline Epistles, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, and the book of Acts are all dated from 45-63 A.D. The Gospel of John and the Revelation may have been written as late as 95 A.D.
Manuscripts
There are over 5,600 early Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament that are still in existence. The oldest manuscripts were written on papyrus and the later manuscripts were written on leather called parchment.
• 125 A.D. The New Testament manuscript which dates most closely to the original autograph was copied around 125 A.D, within 35 years of the original. It is designated "p 52" and contains a small portion of John 18. (The "p" stands for papyrus.)
• 200 A.D. Bodmer p 66 a papyrus manuscript which contains a large part of the Gospel of John.
• 200 A.D. Chester Beatty Biblical papyrus p 46 contains the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews.
• 225 A.D. Bodmer Papyrus p 75 contains the Gospels of Luke and John.
• 250-300 A.D. Chester Beatty Biblical papyrus p 45 contains portions of the four Gospels and Acts.
• 350 A.D. Codex Sinaiticus contains the entire New Testament and almost the entire Old Testament in Greek. It was discovered by a German scholar Tisendorf in 1856 at an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Sinai.
• 350 A.D. Codex Vaticanus: {B} is an almost complete New Testament. It was cataloged as being in the Vatican Library since 1475.
Translations
Early translations of the New Testament can give important insight into the underlying Greek manuscripts from which they were translated from.
• 180 A.D. Early translations of the New Testament from Greek into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions began about 180 A.D.
• 195 A.D. The name of the first translation of the Old and New Testaments into Latin was termed Old Latin, both Testaments having been translated from the Greek. Parts of the Old Latin were found in quotes by the church father Tertullian, who lived around 160-220 A.D. in north Africa and wrote treatises on theology.
• 300 A.D. The Old Syriac was a translation of the New Testament from the Greek into Syriac.
• 300 A.D. The Coptic Versions: Coptic was spoken in four dialects in Egypt. The Bible was translated into each of these four dialects.
• 380 A.D. The Latin Vulgate was translated by St. Jerome. He translated into Latin the Old Testament from the Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. The Latin Vulgate became the Bible of the Western Church until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500's. It continues to be the authoritative translation of the Roman Catholic Church to this day. The Protestant Reformation saw an increase in translations of the Bible into the common languages of the people.
• Other early translations of the Bible were in Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopic, Slavic, and Gothic.
• 1380 A.D. The first English translation of the Bible was by John Wycliffe. He translated the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate. This was a translation from a translation and not a translation from the original Hebrew and Greek. Wycliffe was forced to translate from the Latin Vulgate because he did not know Hebrew or Greek.
In the 1380s, John Wycliffe translated the first English Bible which inspired an English religious revolution which caused persecutions against him by the Catholic Church.
In the early 1500's the German heretic, Martin Luther, almost single handedly caused the final split from the Roman Catholic church and created the beginnings of the Protestant revolution. This split still influences violence to this day. He translated the Bible into German which further spread Protestantism. Luther also helped spread anti-Semitism with his preaching and books such as his "The Jews and their lies," all supported through >his interpretation of the Bible. One should not forget that Hitler (when a Christian and great admirer of Luther) and his holocaust could not have occurred without his influence and the support of Bible believing German Christians. This should no way be confused as the reason for the Holocaust or Nazi belief.
In the 1530s William Tyndale completed his version of the English Protestant Bible (probably with the aid of Luther) and the first to print the English Bible. He too felt the persecution of the Church and he spent his last days in imprisonment and exile. His enemies finally caught him and burned him at the stake, but because of his celebrity, they strangled him first (what nice guys!).
After Luther's German Bible, others followed suit by translating the Bible into their native languages including Dutch and French. Not until 1611 C.E. did a committee of translators and interpreters complete the most popular Bible of all time, the King James Version.
Today we still have dozens of Bible translation versions, with Bible scholars still arguing over the meaning and proper translations of words and phrases. The following shows just a few of the most popular versions:
King James Version (KJV)
The New King James Version (NKJV)
Modern King James Version [Green's Translation] (MKJV)
Literal Translation Version [Green] (LITV)
International Standard Version (ISV)
The New International Version (NIV)
English Standard Version (ESV)
New English Bible (NEB)
American Standard Version (ASV)
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Revised Standard Version (RSV)
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Contemporary English Version (CEV)
Today's English Version (TEV)
The Living Bible (LB)
New Century Version (NC)
New Life Version (NLV)
New Living Translation (NLT)
Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
Revised Young's Literal Translation (RYLT)
John Darby's New Translation
Weymouth New Testament Translation
Rotherham's
Bible Basics - Versions / Translations
All pages and information copyright 1996 Net Ministries, Inc.
Early Christians following the example of Jesus and the apostles, accepted the Old Testament writings as inspired and authoritative scripture. They used the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament. Latin translations of this became available late in the second century. Other works such as the 'Wisdom of Solomon', and 'Ecclesiasticus' were also used at times. Later, Christian congregations began to appreciate the writings of Paul, and the other apostles. The first complete 'gospels' or life of Jesus didn't appear until around 60 A.D., but collections of sermons and writings were partly available some time before this. After the 'canonization' of the Bible as we know it (see the Old Testament and New Testament sections for more information) were formed, the Bible had taken shape. There are no original manuscripts of any of the books of the Bible in existance today. Many of the handwritten texts in Greek however are available from these early times. The earliest complete manuscript of the New Testament, is the Codex Sinaiticus which dates from about the fourth century. Less complete manuscripts date as far back as the late second century or about 130 A.D.. There are more copies of scripture and manuscripts available from the earliest times for the Bible than any other ancient writings. From the many numerous manuscripts available, scholars try to achieve the most complete and accurate wording of the books of the Bible into modern languages. The earliest translations of the New Testament were the Syriac, Latin, and Coptic versions. These translations were not as good as some more modern translations since the translators did not appear to have a good command of the original languages, such as Greek.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Bible was known almost exclusively in Latin known as the Vulgate. The Jews were the first to print the Old Testament in Hebrew (the original language) in 1488. About 1514, the Greek text of the New Testament was printed, although it was not widely released. The first widely released Greek New Testament was printed by Froben with the text work completed by Erasmus about 1516. This became known as Erasmus' New Testament and underwent many improvements and editions. Meanwhile, the Latin version known as the Vulgate continued and was confirmed by the Council on Trent in 1546, although it continued to have revisions and improvements to accuracy.
With the invention of printing, the circulation of the Bible expanded rapidly. With the Reformation, the wish to have the Bible available in people's own language became stronger. One such early work was the 'Luther Bible' written in German. The 'Reformers' did not accept the Apocrypha as scripture and did not include it in their versions of the Bible. The first French Bible appeared about 1523 and at first only contained the New Testament, but was followed a few years later by the Old Testament.
The pioneer of the English Bible is William Tyndale who published the New Testament in 1525. Complete Bibles appeared as early as 1535 such as Miles Coverdale's edition. Thomas Cromwell had the Matthew Bible another English version of the time revised by Coverdale to become the Great Bible in 1539. It is interesting to note that about 90 percent of Tyndale's original translation made it into the King James Version that we know today. King James had sponsored a new translation of the Bible at request of the Puritans in 1604. It appeared in 1611, but apparently drew heavily on previous translations.
Today there are many translations, each claiming a special merit to accuracy to the original Greek, or wording to make it more understandable to an intended audience. Frequently it is necessary to look at multiple translations and versions of particular passages to establish the true meaning. Most all the modern translations publishers have sites on Internet which may be explored. A great site to compare passages is the WWW Bible Gateway. This is why you can't wrap christianity into one neat package. The bottom line is faith, pure and simple, and not as complicated.
2 comments:
At a glance I'd say you've compiled a fairly good timeline that is relatively honest and accurate to the events. :)
Good job. :)
Of course I have to disagree with your closing statement, but I'm tempted to let that slide on this one since the rest is well done.
But I suppose I should ask how you decide what in the bible is metaphorical, and what isn't? How do you know which claims are literally true, and which are just metaphors or analogies etc?
And again, what makes your religion correct, but all others wrong?
What is your standard of evidence and judgment?
"Faith" doesn't validly answer that question, nor is it a simple question or answer.
The origin of the God and savior you believe in come from that very book, so as that is the only real source of your particular religious beliefs, how did you originally decide what was true and what wasn't, what was literal and what was metaphor, and by what standard do you dismiss all the other religions with their rigorous theological study, history, eye witness claims, etc?
Honest questions that you should be able to answer, because you weren't born believing in Jesus Christ as your savior. You were taught it by the people around you, and learned it from reading scripture etc. Exactly the same way billions of Muslims are raised believing in their scriptures as infallible fact with numerous eye witnesses etc... the same way Jews view your religion the same way you view Islam... because they were raised to believe a specific religious ideology with its own particular claims about God and the universe etc.
You learned it from those other sources around you... and by what standard are those sources correct, how do you judge the differences between metaphorical and literal etc...
To help illustrate what I'm referring to, just within the US, let's look at some of the maps illustrating research on religious and denominational distribution.
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/church_bodies.gif
These were created by the Glenmary Research Center that compiles data for Catholic missionaries to try to understand where to focus their missionary efforts etc.
http://www.glenmary.org/grc/Maps_2007/menu.htm
You can see other examples of this effect from various other sources...
http://trueslant.com/michaelshermer/files/2010/04/map_world_religions.gif
http://www.wadsworth.com/religion_d/special_features/popups/maps/matthews_world/images/w001.jpg
And many more... and you'll see that they all paint a similar picture of people's faiths being largely based on the accident of the location of their birth... where they are taught, and generally adopt, the faith of their peers and their family... and come to believe that faith is the only true faith, and that because their faith says that the others are false, that they must be etc... without following the logic further as I've laid out through our many comments back and forth thus far.
Maybe you can explain to me these things better than I understand them.
Finnally, I seem to have got your attention. What makes my religion correct and other wrong.First question, and the answer is"my faith". What makes the others wrong? Answer, Didn't say they were, again it's that judgement thing and when it come to faith, like yours in what you believe. I may disagree with you, but it doesn't make it right or wrong. I'm sorry, but I won't judge you and maybe thats the problem in the world, too many judges.
As you can see by all the translation, alot of conflicting opinions over the years. To go thru everyone tends to drive me crazy. Some translation seem sound, but others seem to be in the sci fi column. Now as millions of author who describe themselve as experts have even muddied the water even more, the"other side" does the same thing. Are you an expert if you write something? Even if an author is well versed, doesn't mean he is right.(Both Sides)
As far as your statement and backup material concerning how a person is raised has something to do with their faith, you may be right. Your one example is from a cathholic perspective, but I'll bite. I can disagree with that using you as a prime example and the relationship between your familiy and you, my wife and her father, etc...... Standard of evidence don't mean squat when her father molested her and beat her and she did not do that to her children.
With all this confusion how do I know what to believe? Comes back to faith and having faith that my father and mother instilled in me the right things. Not only did my parents love me unconditionally, even when I rebelled against their faith. Sometime the answer is very simple and not as complex as we want to make it. Have I raised my kids the best way? Time alone will tell, but I pray to God that they will use what I gave them and build on it with a stronger faith and a smarter mind and know that they have my unconditional love and support.
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