Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Steven,

Thanks for all the wonderful information. I had one question:

> Wycliffe could only translate from the NT Vulgate, so that is 
> basically an independent translation.
> (I'm not 100% sure about the Tanach)

HH: He apparently did the same for the OT:
http://www.higherpraise.com/preachers/wycliffe.htm

Although he did not know Scripture in its original languages, and 
translated Scripture from the Latin Vulgate, he gave a remarkably 
accurate translation which enabled the common people to hear the 
Scriptures in their language for the first time.

Our English Bible gradually developed over the last six hundred 
years. John Wycliffe is credited with the first English translation 
of the New Testament which was completed about 1380 C.E.

I don't understand the connection between only being able to 
translate from the Vulgate and it being basically an independent 
translation. I can't remember the details, but that would seem, on 
the face of it, to make it less independent:
http://www.intergate.com/~jcordaro/Jn.1.html

Wycliffe's translation is based upon the Latin Vulgate, not the 
Greek. It is therefore a "version of a version."

HH: Perhaps you mean that his English did not depend on other English 
translations.  Here is a word about it from the NY Public Library:
http://www.nypl.org/press/tyndale.cfm

In the 14th century, John Wycliffe translated the Bible from Latin 
into English working from the Vulgate. Wycliffe's translation clung 
faithfully to the syntax and grammar of the Latin, which resulted in 
an awkward English. Though faithful to the Vulgate, Wycliffe's 
translation, which emphasized the common man's access to the 
Scriptures, was condemned as heretical in England by the 
Constitutions of Oxford in 1408, setting a precedent for Tyndale's 
fate.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard
> From peterkirk AT qaya.org  Thu Jan  6 07:19:40 2005
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From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
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To: Schmuel <Schmuel AT escape.com>, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] paraphrase Bible versions
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On 05/01/2005 19:24, Schmuel wrote:

> Hi b-hebrew,
>
> Subject was: Re: [b-hebrew] Review Alter's translation
>
> Schmuel
> First, let me say that I am not convinced that the term paraphrase is limited to reworking 
> within one language in scholarly lingo.
>
> The dictionary definitions do not seem to have that definition limitation, and if you put 
>    "translation is a paraphrase" or "paraphrase translation" into Google
> you will 500 hits each where all sorts of translations are called paraphrases 
> in writings.
> One interesting article
> http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/bibletrans.html
> discusses what is a paraphrase, and says that paraphrase itself is a "loaded 
> word"
>  

Fair enough. I accept that a pejorative sense of "paraphrase" is in use 
in some circles, resulting in general confusion. This part of this 
article is generally good (I haven't read it all), although it goes over 
the top in its condemnation of the Living Bible. I am happy to follow 
the advice there:

> We can eliminate some confusion by setting aside the loaded word 
> paraphrase for the moment. The real issue seems to be how we determine 
> what merits the title of translation and what doesn't.


> However, for the purpose of your question below, I will  be using your 
> definition.
>
> Peter Kirk,
>  
>
> > Please name any English version which is in fact a paraphrase, i.e. an adaptation of a previous text in the same language, rather than a translation, i.e. based on the original language texts - and which does not call itself a paraphrase as the Living Bible does. 
> >    
>
> Schmuel
> Well, the Complete Jewish Bible Tanach from David Stern simply changed words in the 
> JPS-1914, (David acknowledged very limited Hebrew expertise).  When David discusses 
> "paraphrase", as in 
> http://mywebpages.comcast.net/StudyTheBible/InfoJewish.rtf he is using the literalness 
> of the translation as his definition, not whether it is a rework of an existing text in 
> the target language.
>
> And apparently the Restoration Scriptures by a group called YATI (Your Arms to Israel) did similarly using the Revised Standard Version.  Not surprisingly they are not very straightforward with their description of their methodology, leaving the impression that they did an original translation. 
>
> How these two handled the NT I cannot say for certain offhand.
>
> There are others where there is no real scholarship background given, and there have been 
> paraphrase theories offered by outsiders.  One would be the ISR - "Institute of Scriptural 
> Research" in South Africa version "The Scriptures".  The second is well-known, the 
> New World Translation by the Jehovah's Witnesses.  Perhaps this did in fact fully involve 
> translation from the original languages, but there is at least some uncertainty.  I see now that 
> you mention this below.
>
> btw, James Trimm did something similar with his Hebraic-Roots-Version NT, being 
> publicized largely through the Internet, while claiming an original translation.  This 
> was a little different, as mostly he didn't even change any vocabulary, prepositions, 
> conjunctions, punctuation, etc. so his volume qualifies much more as a plagiarism than 
> a paraphrase.   A lot of words were changed to be more "Hebraic", but that is 
> neither translation or paraphrase, simply substitution (word processor 
> scan-and-replace).
>  

Thank you. All of these (except perhaps NWT) are best classified, to my 
mind at least, as fringe versions rather than mainstream ones. And most 
of them are generally rather literal. So I don't think these are what 
Bill had in mind when he commented on "the excesses of paraphrases 
posing as translations which are striving for originality and novelty in 
English".

> ...
>
> > Peter (in later post)
> > And this is how most English versions have been done, except for Wycliffe's very first one. 
> >    
>
> Schmuel
> Wycliffe could only translate from the NT Vulgate, so that is basically an 
> independent translation.
> (I'm not 100% sure about the Tanach)
> Tyndale was the "very first one" on the line of Masoretic Text and TR Bibles.  
>
>  
My point was that Tyndale made use of the phrasing and vocabulary of 
Wycliffe's translation, although he also brought it in line with the MT 
and the Greek NT. But Wycliffe could not use any earlier English 
version, and so had to invent his own English phrasing and terminology 
everywhere. (More accurately, there were two Wycliffe versions, and the 
second one was much more satisfactory; and Wycliffe's personal 
involvement in the work was small.)

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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