The Word: On the Translation of the Bible

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A century and a half earlier another dissident, John Wycliffe, suffered Vatican justice for the same sin, but only once dead. Arguably this information is available elsewhere, in the preface of the different versions for example, and the scope of this book is discussion of the issues of translation, rather than a reference work.

In writing about odd grammar in Scripture, he suggests "the fact that the BIble is not written throughout in the best varieties of its languages, but can contain bad Hebrew or Greek, is hard to square with claims that it is inerrant or perfect" (157).In drawing attention to apparent inconsistencies in translation, the author highlights where they can change perceptions of the text’s original meaning, or where existing doctrine may have influenced the translator. This book examines how saints, scholars and interpreters from antiquity to the present have negotiated the difficult task of producing usable versions of the Bible in their own language while remaining faithful to the original.

Does this mean that Barton’s history of the Bible provides an armoury of arguments for religious sceptics? I'd say, however, that while the reading is accessible, it is very much written by an academic and I suspect that it would be found most interesting - and accessible - by those who have an academic background. This book offers a fascinating review of translation philosophies as they apply to the Bible and really opened my mind to perspectives I hadn’t considered before. Growing up in the Institute of Basic Life Principles community, which she came to realize was “a cult, thriving on a culture of fear and manipulation,” Duggar and her 18 siblings were raised never to question parental authority. The problems I mentioned would prevent me from recommending the book to most lay Christians, but I will absolutely be suggesting this book to students and faculty at my seminary.However learned we may be, we stand on giants’ shoulders, and trust others’ judgements, to catch glimpses, or wangle views, of the Truth. John Barton was the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2014 and since 1973 has been a serving priest in the Church of England. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. By one of the coincidences that intrigue me, he, like Peter Davidson whose poetry I reviewed last week, is a Fellow of Campion Hall in Oxford. The Word offers, of course, an overview of the history of biblical translation from Nehemiah and Ptolemaic Egypt to the present day.