Von: fpbstra@club-internet.fr (Francis BUSSER)
  Datum: 26.05.98, 14:36:31
Betreff: Re: The English Bible

Joseph Chodacki III wrote:
>
> Lutherans are Christians and use the St. James Bible, which as I didn't
> belong to the Lutheran Church until I was an adult, but attended Baptist and
> Nazareen Churches before that, and I have always used the St. James Version
> of the Bible.
>
> Paula Chodacki
> Almont, MI.
> buckskin@cardina.net
> URL: http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/c/h/o/Paula-L-Chodacki/index.html


Dear Paula, dear Joseph,

As in a critical domain like genealogy, approximations lead to
misunderstandings, allow me to rectify a little error in your
communication.

First a short return in the past and to England. From the Norman
Conquest to the 14th century, only a few Biblical litterature was
written in English. Those who could read at all could also read Latin,
so the only Bible in use by the Universal Christian Church ('Catholic'
means 'Universal'), was the 'Vulgate', the Latin translation of Old and
New Testament by St. Jerome. English was the language of a conquered
people and still in gestation, so the higher society spoke mostly
french. Most of this time's english Biblical litterature consist of
poems or poetical paraphrases (as Ormulum, Cursor Mundi, Piers Plowman
or the Golden Legend). It was the only way for any one ignorant of Latin
to gain an always incomplete knowledge of the Scriptures.

At the end of the 15th century, the Christian Church was in a deep
decadence. More poeple could read and write, but very few, even in the
clergy, could still understand Latin, even the Latin of services which
they said. It urged to reform the Church in deepth and to translate the
Scriptures in English.

The first translations grounded on the Vulgate, where understand as a
revolt again the corrupted Church and biased by the comments which
accompanied the translation. The Bible used by Wyclif or Lollard Bible,
was the first complete English translation. Meantime the Renaissance had
come and Erasmus published 1516 a Greek text of the New Testament. In
Germany, Luther made 1522 his german translation from Erasmus's Greek
text. William Tyndale issues between 1526 and 1535 several more or less
revised versions of his complete English translation. His introduction
and glosses where strongly Lutheran in the beginning and became later
more Calvinistic, but always vigourously anticatholic. This explains his
tendencious forms as 'congregation' for 'Church' and 'senior' or 'elder'
rather than 'priest' to translate 'presbyteros'. Tyndale is also the
creator of the name 'Jehowah' for the Tetragramaton 'YHWH', rendered in
most modern translations by the word 'Lord'. This name became today the
'trade mark' of a large american publisher.

Several other translations of inegal accuracy where published, until
1604 the King James I (of England) promoted a impartial revision to lead
to a well translated Bible, without any marginal notes and accepted by
the whole Church. This 'English Bible' was published 1611 as the
'Authorized Version'. Several times revised and modernized in his
language, she is still in use in the Churches. This translation is known
today in USA as the 'KJV' or 'King James Version'. Remark : not 'St
James Bible'. Saint James was one of the 12 Apostle or the writer of the
James's Epistle, perhaps both.

The American Bible Society has released 1973-1984 a completely new
version of the Bible, carefully translated directly in contemporary
English from the best available Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek textes. The
collaboration of experts from many denominations was tought to safeguard
the translation from sectarian bias. But this 'New International
Version' ('NIV') is not an oecumenical one, as wether Catholics nor
Orthodoxes have collaborated to.

For a stranger as I am, the NIV is much easyer to read as the KJV.

Our ancestors where deeply Christians and many where persecuted before
they emmigrated. We cannot understand her life without a minimum of
Bible knowledge. So my answer is not only for you, dear Paula and dear
Joseph, but also for many other fellows in Alsace, Germany and
Switzerland.

It would be to long today and to far from your message to explain also
the differences between the Protestant and Catholic attitudes in the
face of Bible. This question must one day be clarified.

With the best regards (et toutes mes amitiés) from
	Francis Busser in Alsace (France)