Introduction

Translations of the Bible became very significant in the history and evolution of different languages across the world. The language of the Bible passed into common parlance and helped in standardizing the language. The same issues that we have seen regarding the translation of the Torah and Quran are applicable to the Bible also. The injunction against translating the word of God was prevalent for a while with respect to the Bible as well. However, in the course of the evolution of Christianity, the Bible came to be translated into different languages. In fact, it is most popular in its translated version than its original – Latin rather than original Hebrew, but believers do not seem to be concerned about the ‘faithfulness’ of the translation. Eugene Nida describes the translation of the Bible as “arguably the greatest undertaking in interlingual communication in the history of the world” and states: “The significance of Bible translating can be readily sensed when we consider that at least one book of the Scriptures has been translated and published in 2009 languages and dialects, spoken by a minimum of 97 percent of the world’s population” ("Bible translation",23).

The Bible actually consists of more than one text. It includes the Old Testament and New Testament. The Old Testament contains 39 books and is written Hebrew and partly in Aramaic. The New Testament which has 27 books is in Greek. There are some people, especially the Catholics, who consider the Apocrypha (known also as deuterocanonical), also to be a part of the Bible. It has 12 books and is also in Greek. Since this is not part of original Hebrew, it is not accepted as authentic by the Jews and some Protestants. The Old Testament is common to Judaism and Christianity, and we have seen how it has been translated into Latin by St. Jerome. The Bible eventually reached most corners of the world and its translation was one of the ways in which the faith was spread among non-believers. The translation of the Bible also influenced translation theory, as it raised questions about fidelity and equivalence in translation.