The Struggle for a Bible in Modern Greek
I often use the Vamva version of the Christian scriptures as a form of commentary for difficult verses. I like to see what a 19th century native Greek speaker and Bible scholar thinks the text means. Here is some information from a Jehovah's Witness site on the Vamva Bible. I don't know much else about it.
- Against this backdrop of fierce opposition and earnest yearning for Bible knowledge, there emerged a prominent figure who would play a key role in the translation of the Bible into modern Greek. This courageous person was Neofitos Vamvas, a distinguished linguist and noted Bible scholar, generally regarded as one of the "Teachers of the Nation."
Vamvas clearly saw that the Orthodox Church was to blame for the spiritual illiteracy of the people. He strongly believed that in order to awaken the people spiritually, the Bible needed to be translated into the spoken Greek of the day. In 1831, with the help of other scholars, he began translating the Bible into literary Greek. His complete translation was published in 1850. Since the Greek Orthodox Church would not support him, he collaborated with the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) on the publication and circulation of his translation. The church labeled him "a Protestant," and soon he found himself an outcast.
Vamvas' rendering adhered closely to the King James Version and inherited the deficiencies of that version because of the limited Bible scholarship and linguistic knowledge of the time. Yet, for many years it was the closest thing to a Bible in modern Greek that people had access to. Interestingly, it includes the personal name of God four times, in the form "Ieová."—Genesis 22:14; Exodus 6:3; 17:15; Judges 6:24.
What was the general reaction of the people to this and other easy-to-understand versions of the Bible? Simply overwhelming! In a boat off one of the Greek islands, a colporteur of the BFBS was "so beset with boats full of children who came for [Bibles], that he was obliged . . . to order the captain to get under way" lest he should part with his whole stock in one place! But the opposition did not stand idly by.
Orthodox priests warned the people against such translations. In the city of Athens, for instance, Bibles were confiscated. In 1833, the Orthodox bishop of Crete committed to the flames the "New Testaments" he discovered at a monastery. One copy was hidden by a priest, and the people in the nearby villages hid their copies until the prelate left the island.Some years later on the island of Corfu, Vamvas' translation of the Bible was prohibited by the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church. Its sale was forbidden, and the existing copies were destroyed. On the islands of Chios, Síros, and Mykonos, the hostility of the local clergy led to Bible burning. But further suppression of Bible translation was yet ahead.
posted by Suzanne McCarthy at 2:28 AM
8 Comments:
I have never heard of the Vamva translation but it is a shame to see the Watchtower using it to align themselves and their corrupted "translation" with another man, simply to paint a picture of themselves as being persecuted for trying to provide people with an honest rendering of the Word of God.
There is nothing inherently wrong
And please ignore the "There is nothing inherently wrong" sentence. I forgot to edit that out. Peace
Unfortunately this was the only article I could find about the Vamva bible. It maybe wasn't the best but it is a place to atart. If anyone knows more about it I'd love to hear it.
Modernized Bibles are often sponsored by marginal groups. Thus, a Baptist publisher, HaGefen, publishes the only modern Hebrew Bible I am aware of in Israel, and the Christian translation of the "Old Testament" has received the reaction you might expect from an organization that attempts to evangelize Jews.
I must admit that I get angry when someone proposes a modernized Shakespeare. I even get annoyed when people read modernized Chaucer.
I don't know it myself, but there is a "" modern Greek Bible that is apporved by the Orthodox Church.
Doug,
Thank you for pointing that out. I shall make a point of acquiring a copy.
Hey, they also sell a Modern Greek OT translated from Hebrew -- I don't understand that for an Orthodox bookstore. (I'm also surprised that they teach Biblical Hebrew at St. Vladimir's.)
Not only is there now a modern Greek Bible endorsed by the Orthodox Church, but there was such a New Testament even before Vamvas started work. I have a fascinating article about the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society in the Ottoman empire (at that time including Greece) in the early 19th century*. Here is some of what I have learned from this article.
Perhaps the first modern Greek NT was published in London in 1703, and was rejected by the Orthodox church. A diglot version (modern Greek and NT Greek) originally printed in Halle in 1710 was reprinted by BFBS in London in 1810. In 1814 the Ecumenical Patriarch Kyrillos VI gave it his written approbation, but not for the modern Greek text alone. The article I have includes a reproduction of the Patriarch's handwritten Greek approbation, and English translation dated 1815.
But this version was also criticised for its poor style. So in 1818 BFBS engaged Archimandrite Ilarion, an Orthodox abbot, to translate the Old and New Testaments into modern Greek. This work was interrupted in 1821 or 1822 by the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence. Ilarion's draft New Testament was criticised as more a paraphrase than a translation, but the four gospels were printed in London in 1827. It is unclear whether this version was accepted by the Orthodox, officially or unofficially.
There is a brief mention in the article of Neophytos Vamvas, as the principal of the academy on Chios, but no mention of his later translation work.
* Enlightening "A Poor, Oppressed, and Darkened Nation": Some Early Activities of the BFBS in the Levant by Richard Clogg, pp. 234-250 of Sowing the Word: The Cultural Impact of the British and Foreign Bible Society 1804-2004 edited by Stephen Batalden, Kathleen Cann and John Dean, Sheffield Phoenix Press 2006. I thank my friend John Dean for giving me a copy of this book.
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