History of the Gospel Texts.

All the Sacred books of the New Testament were written in the vernacular Greek, an

Alexandrian dialect, called koine. This language was spoken, or at least understood, by all the

educated inhabitants of the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. It was the

language of all the cultured people of that time. The Evangelists wrote in Greek rather than in

Hebrew, in which the books of the Old Testament were written, in order to make the New

Testament books accessible to a maximum number of people.

At that time only the capital letters of the Greek alphabet were used in writing,

without diacritics, punctuation, or separation between words. Lower case letters appeared

only in the ninth century, together with spacing between words. Punctuation marks were

introduced only with the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. The present

separations of chapters was introduced by Cardinal Hugo in the 13th century, and the separation

into verse was done by the Parisian typographer Robert Stephen in the 16th century.

Through its learned bishops and priests, the Church always concerned itself with

preserving the texts of the Sacred Books in their original purity. This was especially important

before the introduction of the printing press, when the texts were copied by hand, and

errors could easily infiltrate the new copies. It is known that several Christian scholars of the

2nd and 3rd centuries such as Origen; Isihi, the Bishop of Egypt; and Lukian the priest of

Antioch, labored with great diligence over the amendment of the Biblical texts. With the

invention of the printing press, careful attention was given to the reproduction of the Sacred

New Testament Books to ensure that they were copied according to the most ancient and

reliable manuscripts. During the first quarter of the 16th century there appeared two publications

of the New Testament texts in Greek: the “Complete Book of Writings” published in

Spain, and the edition of Erasmus of Rotterdam in Basel. By the end of the last century, the

scholar Tischendorf completed an important critical edition, for which he compared approximately

nine hundred manuscripts of the New Testament.

These conscientious critical works, as well as the untiring efforts of the Church, filled

and guided by the Holy Spirit, assure us that presently we possess the original and unadulterated

Greek text of the Gospels. It may be fairly said that the genuineness of these books rests

upon better evidence than that of any other ancient writing.

The Slavic and Russian translations. During the second half of the 9th century, the Sacred

Books of the New Testament were translated into Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodius,

who enlightened the Slavic people. This language, a Bulgaro-Macedonian dialect, was more

or less understood by all of the speakers of Slavic dialects and the people living in the region

of Thessalonica, the birthplace of the brothers. The oldest manuscript of this Slavonic translation

was preserved in Russia under the title of the Ostromirov Gospel since it was written for

the Mayor of Novgorod by deacon Gregory Ostromirov circa 1056-57. With time, the Slavonic

text was subjected to some Russification. The contemporary Russian translation was

made during the first half of the 19th century.

English Translations. Despite the many English translations of the Bible in whole or

in part undertaken during the Middle Ages, it is not until the 16th century that the history of

the English Bible as we know it actually begins. The New Testament of William Tyndale,

published in 1525-26, was translated directly from the Greek original rather than from the

Latin translation known as Vulgate, as its predecessors had been.

The Hampton Court conference in 1604 proposed a new translation of the Bible, and

54 translators were invited to undertake the work at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster.

Their translation, dedicated to King James I, was published in 1611 in large folio volumes.

This translation, known also as the Authorized Version, has so embedded itself in the religious

and literary history of the English-speaking peoples that its secure place has been

challenged only by revisions of it, not by replacements for it. Such revisions came in the

British Revised version of 1885, followed by the American Standard Version of 1901. This

later was more drastically revised by the Revised Standard Version (1946-52).

The Amplified Bible (1954) is a literal translation with multiple expression using

associated words to convey the original thought. This version is intended to supplement other

translations. The Jerusalem Bible (1966) is a translation form the Hebrew Masoretic text, the

Greek Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and accepted Greek and Aramaic New Testament

texts. In making the New American Bible (1970), a Catholic translation, all the basic texts

were consulted, and the work was 26 years in the making. The Living Bible (1971) is a

popular paraphrase edition and is the work of a single translator, Kenneth L. Taylor. The New

American Standard Bible (1971) was translated by an editorial board of 54 Greek and Hebrew

scholars and required nearly 11 years to complete. The New King James Bible (1979-

82) is a version in conformity with the thought flow of the 1611 King James Bible. It is based

on the Greek text used by Greek speaking churches for many centuries, known presently as

the Textus Receptus or Received Text.

There are more than a dozen English Bible translations available today, each with its

merits and its weaknesses. Some of them are more literal and, consequently, more difficult to

understand; while others are much more readable and understandable, but less accurate. A

serious Bible student might want to compare several of these translations in order to get a

better understanding of the original text. The great variability among modern Bible versions

testifies to the fact that translating is essentially interpreting. In other words, to do a good

job, the translator must know both the original and the language being translated into quite

well. The translator must understand the subject, and, what is extremely important, grasp the

idea the author intended to convey and the sense in which he intended it to be conveyed. And

since the ultimate author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit, the translator needs His

illumination and inspiration to correctly convey His message. St. Peter pointed to this requirement

when he wrote: “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for

prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by

the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:20-21). And here lies the main problem with of some of the modern

Bible translations. The scientists who did them, with all their knowledge of ancient languages

and sincere efforts to do the best job, were often far from the Church and hence never understood

its teaching. So at the present time, the King James Bible and its more contemporary

version, the New King James Bible, although neither is perfect, seem to convey most accurately

the original meaning of the Bible as it was always understood by the Church.