What Bible Translation Is Used In Church Services?

edited December 1969 in Coptic Orthodox Church
Is there any particular English Bible translation used in the services of the Church? I ask because I had planned on memorizing some passages of Scripture and I wanted it to be in conformity to the translations we used at Church.

+Thanks

Comments

  • The translation originally approved to read in Coptic Churches is the KJV. Many still use that, but some have switched to the NKJV. I think that eventually gained approval as well, but I'm not sure. It is more understandable to youth who aren't familiar with the older English, but it does have some inferior translation choices, so it's a trade-off. You should be able to tell which of these your Church uses by how old fashioned it sounds.

    The KJV and its descendants uses the MT for the OT, which is not right in an Orthodox Church. We follow the LXX (of which the Coptic Bible is a translation, and in fact in many ways more accurate than the versions of the LXX available today).

    Many Churches use Brenton's translation of the LXX for the OT prophecies, and many translate the Psalms from Coptic. Brenton's translation is quite poor, but a much more accurate OT than KJV.


    Here is an Agpeya translated from the Coptic (even the Gospels):
    http://www.stmaryscopticorthodox.ca/index.php/component/preachit/sermon/the-agpeya?Itemid=

    It is far more accurate than pretty much anything else available. But the literary quality is not great at this point.

    You would have to check your Church books to see what translations are being used in them.

    I personally would memorize from KJV for NT. I would check Brenton, NETS, and KJV for OT passages, and memorize from KJV if not substantially different, Brenton otherwise. For Psalms, I would compare Brenton to the Coptic translation, and memorize from KJV or Brenton if not substantially different from the Coptic. I would not just memorize from the KJV OT without checking first, as it may be quite different in Christological passages

    (The MT is the Hebrew, so the KJV translators thought it was the obvious choice to translate from rather than the later LXX translation of the Hebrew. But it is not the original Hebrew. It is a late version of the Hebrew that has Christological references "sanitized" by the Jewish Community that use it, while the LXX was the Bible of the Christian Church, which should be used by Christians, with understanding that it is a translation with limitations).
  • i, personally dislike hearing archaic english.
    even though i am not young, i still don't understand it.
    too me (and too millions of native english speakers), it sounds distant, upper class, and lacks beauty.

    i would love it if we stopped using it.
    recently i visited the a church that always used NKJV to find them using KJV (they had changed).
    i mean, which of the church fathers insisted on using a dialect that was 200 years out of date when they preached?
    please post a source.

    also, if you hear it read in a heavy accent by a young man who clearly does not know how to pronounce half the words, it is more torture than heaven.
    :(
    please use english that is easy to learn, easy to pronounce (uses every day words so new speakers of english can pick it up in a few months) and understandable to the listeners.

    but IF you insist on the KJB, then please give 'olde english' lessons after mass so everyone can benefit from understanding the Bible readings.
    ;)

    and if u would like beautiful english with the old testament in the septuagint, then u need my all time favourite:
    ORTHODOX STUDY BIBLE!
    :D
  • jonathan_,
    I am a little confused what what you are saying....The new testament original language is "greek"....how can you have english translated from the coptic? and where is that coptic. also, about agpeya, where is a coptic version of that. you cannot find a full coptic bible anywhere, because there isn't one.
  • [quote author=minatasgeel link=topic=13621.msg158834#msg158834 date=1344885971]
    jonathan_,
    I am a little confused what what you are saying....The new testament original language is "greek"....how can you have english translated from the coptic? and where is that coptic. also, about agpeya, where is a coptic version of that. you cannot find a full coptic bible anywhere, because there isn't one.


    For NT I said I would just go with KJV because it's pretty good, problem is just the MT OT...

    Do you mean the Agpeya I linked? Fr. Athanasius translated the whole thing from the Coptic Agpeya, rather than just inserting the same readings from a Protestant English translation for the same Gospel readings.

    The complete Bible does not survive today in Coptic, but the vast majority of it does, certainly all that is used in readings in the Church. Certainly the whole Psalter and Gospels (which is all that's in the Agpeya) is readily available. Here is a good source for it: http://www.moheb.de/Bible_books.html

    The original NT is (mostly) Greek. The original OT is (mostly) Hebrew. But the Hebrew is corrupted, so the Greek LXX translation is actually a more accurate reflection of the original than the modern day Hebrew. The LXX we have today is not even the original, but is slightly corrupted, and the Coptic translation of that is actually a reflection of an earlier LXX than the manuscripts we have today. For example, the Coptic Ps includes reign "from a tree", which we know is in the LXX because the fathers quote it, but has disappeared from the manuscripts available today.

    For the NT, the Coptic is how it has been prayed by our fathers. I'm not saying it's more accurate than the Greek, but for example in the Lord's prayer, it says "our superessential bread" which is confusing. What does this mean? The way our fathers translated it into Coptic gives an understanding of it: "our bread of the morrow". Maybe a more accurate translation could be had from the Greek, but Fr. Athanasius' translation from the Coptic for a few Gospel readings is more accurate than the KJV, and that way it matches the flow of the OT Coptic translation, which is of course the vast majority of the Agpeya.
  • Another good reference for the Bible in Coptic is the CD put out by the St. Shenoute the Archimandrite society... It has the entire Lectionary (books of readings) in Coptic with a somewhat crude English translation beside it. Of course many people have access to old service books, Agpeyas, Euchologions, Psalmody books, etc., in Coptic that you can't find online.
  • Jonathan, I'd like to comment on some things you said.
    [quote author=jonathan_ link=topic=13621.msg158835#msg158835 date=1344886702]
    The original NT is (mostly) Greek. The original OT is (mostly) Hebrew. But the Hebrew is corrupted, so the Greek LXX translation is actually a more accurate reflection of the original than the modern day Hebrew.
    There is not such thing as more accurate. The Greek LXX is a reflection of an earlier Hebrew version that is different than the Mesoretic text. The current LXX, previous manuscripts of LXX, the Coptic text, the Syriac Pashitta, Armenian, Mesoretic text, earlier Hebrew texts, etc are all snapshots of one stage in Biblical development. Biblical scholars spend enormous amounts of time showing one text or manuscript is derived or copied from another. Many PhD dissertations have revolved on this one issue. The common conclusion, based on intellectual honesty and not biased opinions is, no one version is more authentic. 

    but for example in the Lord's prayer, it says "our superessential bread" which is confusing. What does this mean? The way our fathers translated it into Coptic gives an understanding of it: "our bread of the morrow". Maybe a more accurate translation could be had from the Greek, but Fr. Athanasius' translation from the Coptic for a few Gospel readings is more accurate than the KJV, and that way it matches the flow of the OT Coptic translation, which is of course the vast majority of the Agpeya.

    One must be careful. Stating Fr Athanasius' Agpeya translation reflects how our translating Coptic fathers understood it is not accurate. You are assuming our translating Coptic fathers were only using Bohairic Coptic. Most Sahidic manuscripts/texts came first. The Sahidic and Bohairic translations of Matthew 6:11 (daily bread) are quite different. The Bohairic says, "our bread of the morrow" but the Sahidic says, "our coming bread". These are two different meanings. If one looks at the Greek word, "επιουσιον" you will get the following definitions:
    1. Lidell Scott online at Pegasus: sufficient for the coming (and so current) day, (ἐπιοῦσα (sc. ἡμέρα))
    2. Lidell Scott online at Pegasus: for the day (ἐπὶ τὴν οὖσαν (sc. ἡμέραν)),
    3. Lampe: derived from εἶμίγa. pertaining to the future, i.e. of the world to come,
    4. Lampe: for the day, daily
    5. Lampe: from εἰμί́γa. suited to one's nature, supernatural
    6. Bauer: necessary for existence
    7. Bauer: for the current day, for today
    8. Bauer: for the following day
    9. Google Translate: Daily bread (I don't give any real credibility to this definition)
    The Greek has 8 definitions. The two Coptic translation understand two different Greek meanings (Bohairic #1, 3, 8 and possibly #6. Sahidic #3). The English (KJV) understands another (#4). It's clear to see why different Coptic translators would understand and translate  the Greek word, "επιουσιον" differently. It has nothing to do with errors in translation. It has to do with various degrees of Greek education.
  • I agree. But the fact is , when the KJV was translated, England was much closer to Orthodoxy than when its descendants, the NKJV, the RSV, and the NRSV were translated. So it's a trade-off between more Protestant bias, vs more obscure language.

    I personally agree with you that the NKJV is a better balance than the KJV. But my priest does not. When I said KJV above, what I meant was KJV or NKJV, according to what is used in one's church. I wasn't trying to start a debate about which churches should use.

    The solution is for the Orthodox Church to produce its own translation of the Bible. That hasn't happened yet. I am really looking forward to looking at the Eastern Orthodox Bible, but so far only the NT is out, which is less of an issue than the OT in terms of translation.

    [quote author=mabsoota link=topic=13621.msg158833#msg158833 date=1344883482]
    i, personally dislike hearing archaic english.
    even though i am not young, i still don't understand it.
    too me (and too millions of native english speakers), it sounds distant, upper class, and lacks beauty.

    i would love it if we stopped using it.
    recently i visited the a church that always used NKJV to find them using KJV (they had changed).
    i mean, which of the church fathers insisted on using a dialect that was 200 years out of date when they preached?
    please post a source.

    also, if you hear it read in a heavy accent by a young man who clearly does not know how to pronounce half the words, it is more torture than heaven.
    :(
    please use english that is easy to learn, easy to pronounce (uses every day words so new speakers of english can pick it up in a few months) and understandable to the listeners.

    but IF you insist on the KJB, then please give 'olde english' lessons after mass so everyone can benefit from understanding the Bible readings.
    ;)

    and if u would like beautiful english with the old testament in the septuagint, then u need my all time favourite:
    ORTHODOX STUDY BIBLE!
    :D
  • But there is no such thing as a current LXX. just various manuscripts.

    To say that the MT vs Coptic or LXX are just different snapshots of Biblical development, and that one is not more accurate than the other is a stretch. The OT was very Christological. That is seen in the LXX and the Coptic much more than the MT because the MT was intentionally changed to make it less Christological. That's less accurate.

    The Coptic can't be said to be more accurate than the manuscripts of the LXX that we have today. It reflects an older LXX, i.e. close to the original LXX, but it's also another layer of translation. So considering them together (along with the vulgate to a degree, and others) is the best way to get as close as we can to the original LXX (and there is an original that was produced in 300 BC. We don't have it, but the closest to that is the most accurate), and the original LXX is the closest we can get to the unmolested Hebrew that we don't have today.

    To say the MT is just a development of the Bible and no less accurate than the LXX is like saying the NIV or the GNB is just a development of the KJV, and it is not less accurate despite inclusive language destroying prophecies of Christ, and evangelical thought influencing the translation.

    I think it's a pretty safe bet that the translation from the Coptic (which has been used in our tradition for centuries) of our prayer books, by a Coptic priest who is living and breathing in that tradition is going to be a more accurate reflection of the thought of our fathers than copying and pasting the quoted verses of Scripture from a Protestant translation of the Bible. Sure it's not perfect. There's no such thing. But the Bohairic, though not as old as the Sahidic, has been used prayerfully in the Orthodox Church for a very long time. To me, that beats what the KJV, or worse the NIV translators think it should be. "Our bread of the morrow" and "Our coming bread" seem to mean the same thing to me, as opposed to "our daily bread"

    [quote author=Remnkemi link=topic=13621.msg158840#msg158840 date=1344895290]
    Jonathan, I'd like to comment on some things you said.
    [quote author=jonathan_ link=topic=13621.msg158835#msg158835 date=1344886702]
    The original NT is (mostly) Greek. The original OT is (mostly) Hebrew. But the Hebrew is corrupted, so the Greek LXX translation is actually a more accurate reflection of the original than the modern day Hebrew.
    There is not such thing as more accurate. The Greek LXX is a reflection of an earlier Hebrew version that is different than the Mesoretic text. The current LXX, previous manuscripts of LXX, the Coptic text, the Syriac Pashitta, Armenian, Mesoretic text, earlier Hebrew texts, etc are all snapshots of one stage in Biblical development. Biblical scholars spend enormous amounts of time showing one text or manuscript is derived or copied from another. Many PhD dissertations have revolved on this one issue. The common conclusion, based on intellectual honesty and not biased opinions is, no one version is more authentic. 

    but for example in the Lord's prayer, it says "our superessential bread" which is confusing. What does this mean? The way our fathers translated it into Coptic gives an understanding of it: "our bread of the morrow". Maybe a more accurate translation could be had from the Greek, but Fr. Athanasius' translation from the Coptic for a few Gospel readings is more accurate than the KJV, and that way it matches the flow of the OT Coptic translation, which is of course the vast majority of the Agpeya.

    One must be careful. Stating Fr Athanasius' Agpeya translation reflects how our translating Coptic fathers understood it is not accurate. You are assuming our translating Coptic fathers were only using Bohairic Coptic. Most Sahidic manuscripts/texts came first. The Sahidic and Bohairic translations of Matthew 6:11 (daily bread) are quite different. The Bohairic says, "our bread of the morrow" but the Sahidic says, "our coming bread". These are two different meanings. If one looks at the Greek word, "επιουσιον" you will get the following definitions:
    1. Lidell Scott online at Pegasus: sufficient for the coming (and so current) day, (ἐπιοῦσα (sc. ἡμέρα))
    2. Lidell Scott online at Pegasus: for the day (ἐπὶ τὴν οὖσαν (sc. ἡμέραν)),
    3. Lampe: derived from εἶμίγa. pertaining to the future, i.e. of the world to come,
    4. Lampe: for the day, daily
    5. Lampe: from εἰμί́γa. suited to one's nature, supernatural
    6. Bauer: necessary for existence
    7. Bauer: for the current day, for today
    8. Bauer: for the following day
    9. Google Translate: Daily bread (I don't give any real credibility to this definition)
    The Greek has 8 definitions. The two Coptic translation understand two different Greek meanings (Bohairic #1, 3, 8 and possibly #6. Sahidic #3). The English (KJV) understands another (#4). It's clear to see why different Coptic translators would understand and translate  the Greek word, "επιουσιον" differently. It has nothing to do with errors in translation. It has to do with various degrees of Greek education.
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