Friday, September 23, 2022

Same Text, (Slightly) Different Format

Yesterday I completed a re-formatting of all of the files associated with The Christian Scriptures. These were originally created using Microsoft Office XP 2002, but I have recently been making the transition to the Linux Mint operating system, and have employed the WPS Office suite to convert the original .doc files to the current standard of .docx files. WPS Office's native .pdf creator has helped me eliminate my most nagging formatting issue: footnotes whose anchors appear on one page, but whose text is placed on the subsequent one.

The only significant change in the text of The Christian Scriptures is the placement of footnotes indicating the divergent numbering of the Psalms in the LXX, the MT, and the common English versions. These footnotes used to be attached to the first line of each Psalm. This often resulted in lines with more than one footnote anchor; when these occurred on the last line of a page, it regularly caused the aforementioned footnote text discrepancy. The footnote anchors are now placed at the end of each Psalm title.

Because the .pdf files are now larger, I no longer have space on my Angelfire account to host the complete English Versions Format text. Instead, that web page now links to my Google drive account, permitting anyone who visits the Angelfire page to access the original version of The Christian Scriptures and its underlying Greek text in addition to the English Versions Format.

I note that yesterday was the anniversary of Joseph Smith's alleged discovery of the golden plates, which were the basis for the Book of Mormon. One can only wonder whether the widespread practice of supplementing the original Christian Bible with additional documents, church traditions, and private revelations would cease if more people could read an accurate translation of the original text. I continue to hope and pray that my efforts may contribute in some small way to that end.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

The English Versions Format

The previous edition of The Christian Scriptures presented, at the end of Exodus, 3 Kingdoms, Proverbs, and Jeremiah, alternate versions of those chapters of the Septuagint whose versification significantly diverges from the Masoretic Hebrew text and English renderings of the latter. I now offer the text of the entire Bible in two versions: one according the Septuagint's versification, the other according to the common English versification. This is especially helpful in the Psalms, where the Greek, Hebrew, and English versifications rarely coincide.

The English Versions Format, whose documents have "evf" near the beginning of their file names, may be found at the following link:

https://avtattenai.angelfire.com/tcs/tcs.html

Both versions are available on Google Drive:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rOC93ShWFzkWvV46DGf4M3EEmhSWlpUD?usp=sharing

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Another Modest Update

Over the last several months, I have proofread and edited the proper names of the Greek Old Testament. As the other widely available English translations of the Septuagint (Brenton, and the NETS of Pietersma and Wright) demonstrate, the idiosyncratic spelling of many Greek proper names can be quite an annoyance when reading such a version in the midst of those employing a translation of the Masoretic Hebrew text. Greek lacks equivalents of several Hebrew consonants; it can't distinguish between Aleph and Ayin (both silent letters), He ("h") and Cheth ("ch"), Zayin ("z") and Tsade ("ts"), Teth ("t") and Tav ("t" or "th"), Kaph ("k") and Qoph ("q"), and Samech ("s") and Shin ("s" or "sh"), and since the letters Daleth ("d") and Resh ("r") are almost identical in appearance, especially in handwritten manuscripts, these two consonants are frequently transposed. In addition, since ancient Hebrew texts lack any vowel signs, the vowels in Greek proper names are often very different from those assumed by Masoretic text editions.

The main principle I adopted in handling Greek proper names is that of consistency. For example, in the Septuagint balla is the name of both Jacob's first concubine (Gen. 30:3) and the king of Sodom (Gen. 14:2), thus my version renders both as "Bilhah," whereas Masoretic versions render the latter as "Bera." Such divergences are rarely footnoted, even as Masoretic versions rarely note divergences from the Septuagint. But when the underlying Hebrew equivalent of a proper name is uncertain, a footnote is attached containing both the Greek spelling behind my proposed transliteration and any alternate Masoretic text reading. These are almost always unique occurrences, where the Masoretic text has a very different name, or no name at all.

In reviewing the differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic version of the Old Testament, I was reminded that there are several places where the order of these texts is so divergent as to make comparison virtually impossible. These are Exodus 36-40, 3 Kingdoms 5-6, Proverbs 24 and 30, and Jeremiah 25-51. The material in these chapters has been re-ordered according to the Masoretic versification and placed at the end of the respective books.

The other reason for this latest revision was to provide a translation of Codex Sinaiticus' divergent text of Tobit. As noted in a previous post, Rahlfs' Septuagint presents three entire books, and parts of a fourth, in two parallel columns. I still view the differences between the Vaticanus and Alexandrinus versions of the book of Judges, as well as the lists of proper names in Jesus (Joshua) 15:21-62 and 18:21-19:45, to be insufficient to warrant separate translations. However, motivated by the importance of Sinaiticus' version of Tobit 6:13 in understanding the biblical concept of betrothal (see the note at Matt. 1:18), I changed my opinion about preparing a distinct translation of the entire Sinaiticus text, which I have placed in the OT History II section immediately following that of Tobit according to Vaticanus and Alexandrinus. Felicitously, my final translated sentence turns out to be a fitting epitaph for any biblical believer's life: "He blessed the Lord God forever and ever. Amen."

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Appendix Complete!

Almost four years after the initial draft of The Christian Scriptures, I have completed my translation of the last major text associated with the Greek Old Testament, the original Septuagint version of Daniel.

Rahlfs' edition of the Septuagint contains two different versions of three works: Judges (Vaticanus text vs. that of Alexandrinus), Tobit (Vaticanus/Alexandrinus text vs. that of Sinaiticus), and Daniel. In my opinion, the first two books are not sufficiently crucial to Christian theology, nor are they dramatically distinctive in content, so as to warrant anything more than noting important variant readings in the footnotes. Daniel by contrast plays a major role in Jesus' eschatological preaching (e.g. Mark 13) and in John's Revelation, and its original Greek text regularly diverges from the later edition of Theodotion, which ancient Christian Bibles favored. As a non-canonical text, the complete Daniel "according to the Seventy" has been placed in the Appendix file, together with Solomon's Psalms.

The last verses which I translated (in Daniel 11) featured references to "the testament of the Holy One," as opposed to "the holy testament" in Theodotion. Recovering the correct understanding of this testament is arguably the modern church's most pressing task, and it is my prayer and hope that The Christian Scriptures may contribute to this goal.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

A Modest Update

I have just completed a revision of the New Testament, in which I have added a number of textual variants which are included in other widely used English Bibles.

I also have reformatted the book of Esther to make it more compatible with other English versions.

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Revision Complete!

Today I completed a thorough proofread of The Christian Scriptures, correcting a number of typographical errors and clarifying several confusing renderings. The Revised Edition is still a very literal version (some might say, excessively so), but I remain convinced that the English reader needs the opportunity to hear the Scriptures as much as possible as they would have sounded to their ancient audience, and thus avoid misleading paraphrases and disconnections of important words from their occurrences elsewhere.

It is auspicious that this project, which has consumed the better part of my professional life, should reach its fulfillment during the Advent season.  I continue to believe that overcoming the major errors of other English translations of the Bible will play an essential role in reforming our fragmented churches, redirecting our confused society, and paving the way for our Lord's ultimate Advent.