John Reumann (1927–2008)

A random number generator does not a book make.

This is a readable and interesting volume about the history of Bible editions and translations. But it should not be understood as a history of the same. This is shown not only by the material it includes but also that it excludes. People it includes are:
* the translators responsible for the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), although this chapter is much too short for an incredibly complex topic
* Johanan ben Zakkai, a rabbi at the time of the first Jewish Revolt against the Romans
* Akiba, another rabbi, this time at the timeof the second revolt
* Aquila, who created a Greek crib for the Hebrew bible so as to ensure that no one could actually understand what the Hebrew Bible said
* Tatian and Marcion, Christian heretics who both "edited" the Bible in ways that emphasied their beliefs
* Martin Luther
* Origen, who neither translated the Bible nor produced a useful edition but created a "parallel" Bible of existing translations of the Hebrew Bible
* Jerome, who slightly adapted the Latin New Testament and put the Hebrew Bible into Latin (the earlier Latin translations were from the Greek)
* J. J. Wettstein, the first scholar to try to assemble the materials to remove the corruption that had crept into the New Testament texts since they were assembled
* Charles Thompson, an American translator of the Septuagint
* Constantine von Tishchendorf, the manuscript hunter,
* The committee who assembled the Twentieth Century New Testament
* Ronald Knox, who translated a late and corrupt version of Jerome's Vulgate into English

There are some very big names missing from that list. Ephraim, arguably the most scholarly scribe in the years between 500 and 1200, who gave us the tremendous manuscripts designated 1582 and 1739. John Wycliff, who produced the first English translation of the whole Bible (from Latin). Erasmus, who prepared the first Greek edition of the New Testament to be printed. William Tyndale, who first translated the New Testament from Greek into English. The creators of the Geneva and King James Bibles. Lancelot Brenton, who did a much better translation of the Septuagint than Thompson. Karl Lachmann, who finally broke with Erasmus's corrupt edition of the New Testament. Westcott and Hort, who created the Greek text which is essentially that of all competent translations since their time. The creators of the English Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the Revised Standard Version.

These are much bigger names than the names Reumann covers. He gives very little attention to the actual editions of either Hebrew or Greek Bibles. Origen and Jerome and Wettstein and Tischendorf are important for the history of the Bible, and Luther for its translation, but Aquila's edition is about 90% lost, and so are Tatian's (in Greek and Syriac, anyway) and Marcion's, and Thompson and Knox frankly aren't important for anything to do with Bible translation.

Don't get this wrong. I knew most of the information about most of these people. But I learned a lot about Wettstein, and I learned that Knox's translation, which I had been seeking, is not as useful as I expected. I learned what Thompson's Bible is. There is useful information in this book. It's just that it cannot and must not be mistaken for a genuine history of either the Bible text or of translation. It is, in truth, "chapters" in the history -- the chapters that were cut after some publisher said, "We have to shorten the book. What can we leave out that isn't very important?"… (mais)