公式と参考書の関係

 

ネットサーチして見つけた記事ですが、ルターの最大の功績を聖書翻訳とみなし、合わせて英語への翻訳の歴史を紹介してくれています。このあたりの知識がないもので勉強になります。シェイクスピアが読んだ聖書がジェノバ聖書というバージョンだったなんて知りませんでした。

 

The Most DangerousThing Luther Did

And other facts about Bible translation that transformed the world.

BEN WITHERINGTON III

 

The Latin Vulgate was the Bible that Luther first studied, but he soon became aware of its deficiencies as he delved into the Greek text to discover his revolutionary insights. That led Luther to another realization: if things were really going to change, it would not come just by debating theology with other learned souls. The Bible needed to be made available in the vernacular (in this case German) and needed to be widely available. In my view, the most dangerous thing Luther ever did was not nail the 95 Theses to a door. It was translating the Bible into ordinary German and encouraging its widespread dissemination.

 

宗教改革の時代、聖書を英語に訳した人はWilliam Tyndaleだそうですが、彼は処刑されてしまったそうで、ルターはその点幸運でしたね。

 

（ロングマン）

Tyndale, William

 (?1492–1536) an English priest who supported the reformation (=the time when many Christians in Europe left the Catholic religion and started the Protestant religion). The Authorized Version of the Bible is partly based on his translations. He was killed by being burned to death because of his religious beliefs.

 

（オックスフォード）

William Tyndale

(c. 1494-1536) an English writer who translated the Bible. His work as a translator was opposed in England and he was forced to live in Germany, where he produced the first English version of the Bible between 1525 and 1531. This later became the basis for the King James Version of 1611. He was burnt alive in Belgium as a heretic.

 

記事でこのTyndaleに触れているところです。ロングマンもオックスフォードも取り上げていることですが、King James Versionの基盤となった翻訳なんですね。

 

Perhaps the most poignant tale of this era is that of William Tyndale. Tyndale lived from 1494–1536 and was martyred for translating the Bible into English. Tyndale, like Luther, translated directly from the Hebrew and the Greek, except presumably for cross-referencing and checking. He actually only finished the New Testament, completing about half of his Old Testament translation before his death. His was the first mass-produced Bible in English.

 

Tyndale originally sought permission from Bishop Tunstall of London to produce this work but was told that it was forbidden, indeed heretical, and so Tyndale went to the Continent to get the job done. A partial edition was printed in 1525 (just three years after Luther) in Cologne, but spies betrayed Tyndale to the authorities and, ironically, he fled to Worms, the very city where Luther was brought before a diet and tried. From there, Tyndale’s complete edition of the New Testament was published in 1526.

 

As Alister McGrath was later to note, the King James Version (KJV), or Authorized Version, of the early 1600s (in several editions including the 1611 one) was not an original translation of the Bible into English but instead a rather wholescale taking over of Tyndale’s translation with some help from the Geneva Bible and other translations. Many of the memorable turns of phrase in the King James—“by the skin of his teeth,” “am I my brother’s keeper?” “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” “a law unto themselves,” and so forth—are phrases Tyndale coined. He had a remarkable gift for turning biblical phrases into memorable English.

 

 

もう一つの英語版にGeneva Bibleがあるというのも知りました。シェイクスピアが読んだだけでなく、ピルグリムファーザーたちがアメリカに持ち込んだ聖書だったとか。Genevaは日本語だとジュネーブになるのでジュネーブ聖書と呼ばれているようです。

 

For this and various reasons, many of the budding Protestant movements on the Continent and in Great Britain were not happy with the Great Bible. The Geneva Bible had more vivid and vigorous language and became quickly more popular than the Great Bible. It was the Bible of choice for William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John Bunyan, John Donne, and the pilgrims when they came to New England. It, not the KJV, was the Bible that accompanied them on the Mayflower.

 

The Geneva Bible was popular not only because it was mass produced for the general public but also because it had annotations, study guides, cross-references with relevant verses elsewhere in the Bible, and introductions to each book summarizing content, maps, tables, illustrations, and even indices. In short, it was the first study Bible in English, and again note, it preceded the KJV by a half-century. Not surprisingly for a Bible produced under the aegis of John Calvin’s Geneva, the notes were Calvinistic in substance and Dissenting (disagreeing with the Church of England) in character. That was one reason the kings of England produced “the Authorized Version.” They needed a Bible that didn’t question Dieu et mon droit (meaning “God and my right,” the monarch’s motto that suggested his sovereignty).

 

公認の聖書よりもGeneva Bibleの方に人気があった原因を訳が良かったことと、注釈や概要、図、表などが充実していたことを挙げています。信者といってもいきなり聖書を読むのは難しく、このような手引きがあった方がよいのはいつの時代も同じですね。