Old English Bible translations
The Old English Bible translations are the partial
. The translations are from Latin texts, not the original languages.Many of these translations were in fact
Early history (600-874)
Information about translations is limited before the
Cædmon (~657–684) is mentioned by Bede as one who sang poems in Old English based on the Bible stories, but he was not involved in translation per se.
Bede (c. 672–735) produced a translation of the Gospel of John into Old English, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death. This translation is lost; we know of its existence from Cuthbert of Jarrow's account of Bede's death.[6]
The
Alfred and the House of Wessex (875-999)
As England was consolidated under the House of Wessex, led by descendants of
Between 950 and 970, Aldred the Scribe added a gloss in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English (the Northumbrian Gloss on the Gospels) to the Lindisfarne Gospels as well as a foreword describing who wrote and decorated it. Its version of The Lord's Prayer is as follows:
- Suae ðonne iuih gie bidde fader urer ðu arð ðu bist in heofnum & in heofnas; sie gehalgad noma ðin; to-cymeð ric ðin. sie willo ðin suae is in heofne & in eorðo. hlaf userne oferwistlic sel us to dæg. & forgef us scylda usra suae uoe forgefon scyldgum usum. & ne inlæd usih in costunge ah gefrig usich from yfle
At around the same time (~950–970), a priest named Farman wrote a gloss on the Gospel of Matthew that is preserved in a manuscript called the Rushworth Gospels.[16]
In approximately 990, a full and freestanding version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Old English appeared in the West Saxon dialect and are known as the Wessex Gospels. Seven manuscript copies of this translation have survived. This translation gives us the most familiar Old English version of Matthew 6:9–13, the Lord's Prayer:
- Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. To becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. Urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. And ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. Soþlice.
At about the same time as the Wessex Gospels (~990), the priest
Late Anglo-Saxon translations (after 1000)
The
The three related manuscripts, Royal 1 A. xiv at the British Library, Bodley 441 and
In 1066, the Norman Conquest marked the beginning of the end of the Old English language. Translating the Bible into Old English gradually ended with the movement from Old English to Middle English, and eventually there were attempts to provide Middle English Bible translations.
References
- ^ Stanton 2002, p. 101: "There was very little translation of the Bible into any Western vernacular in the Middle Ages, and as with other kinds of texts, English was precocious in this regard. The portions of the Bible translated into Old English are among the earliest vernacular versions of the Latin Bible in Western Europe"
- ^ MS fonds latin 8824, not to be confused with the Byzantine Paris Psalter
- ^ Stanton 2002, p. 126, 162.
- ^ "The Beginnings of an English Bible - Early English Bibles".
- ^ "Anglo-Saxon Versions".
- ^ Dobbie 1937.
- ^ Wright 1967.
- ^ See also Roberts 2011, which looks at three Anglo-Saxon glossed psalters and how layers of gloss and text, language and layout, speak to the meditative reader.
- ^ Roberts 2011, p. 74, n. 5
- ^ Gretsch 2000, p. 85–87.
- ^ Roberts 2011, p. 61.
- ^ McGowan 2007, p. 205.
- ^ Harsley 1889.
- ^ Colgrave 1958.
- ^ Treschow, Gill & Swartz 2012, §19ff
- ^ Stevenson & Waring 1854–1865.
- ^ MS. Hatton 38 2011, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 837
- ^ Kato 2013.
Sources
- Colgrave, B., ed. (1958), The Paris Psalter: MS. Bibliothèque nationale fonds latin 8824, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, vol. 8, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, OCLC 717585.
- Dekker, Kees (2008), "Reading the Anglo-Saxon Gospels in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries", in Hall, Thoman N.; Scragg, Donald (eds.), Anglo-Saxon Books and Their Readers, Kalamazoo, MI, pp. 68–93, ISBN 978-1580441377).
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Dobbie, E. Van Kirk (1937), The Manuscripts of Caedmon's Hymn and Bede's Death Song with a Critical Text of the Epistola Cuthberti de obitu Bedae, New York: Columbia University Press, OCLC 188505.
- Gretsch, Mechthild (2000), "The Junius Psalter gloss: its historical and cultural context", S2CID 162799591.
- Harsley, F, ed. (1889), Eadwine's Canterbury Psalter, OCLC 360348.
- Kato, Takako (2013), "Oxford, Bodley, Hatton 38: Gospels", in Da Rold, Orietta; Kato, Takako; Swan, Mary; Treharne, Elaine (eds.), The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220, ISBN 978-0953231959.
- McGowan, Joseph P. (2007), "On the 'Red' Blickling Psalter Glosses", .
- "MSS. Hatton", Bodleian Library Catalog, University of Oxford, 8 July 2011, archived from the original on 27 January 2013
- Roberts, Jane (2011), "Some Psalter Glosses in Their Immediate Context", in Silec, Tatjana; Chai-Elsholz, Raeleen; Carruthers, Leo (eds.), Palimpsests and the Literary Imagination of Medieval England: Collected Essays, Springer, pp. 61–79, ISBN 9780230100268.
- Stanton, Robert (2002), The Culture of Translation in Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, ISBN 9780859916431.
- Stevenson, Joseph; Waring, George, eds. (1854–1865), The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels, vol. 28, 39, 43, 48, Durham: Surtees Society
{{citation}}
: External link in
(help).|volume=
- Treschow, Michael; Gill, Paramjit; Swartz, Tim B. (2012), "King Alfred's Scholarly Writings and the Authorship of the First Fifty Prose Psalms", The Heroic Age, 12
- Wright, David H., ed. (1967), The Vespasian Psalter, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, vol. 14, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, OCLC 5009657.
External links
- Ða Halgan Godspel on Englisc ("The Holy Gospels in English"), mostly based on Cod. Bibl. Pub. Cant. Ii. 2. 11.
- Anglo-Saxon Versions of Scripture (some information)
- Notes on Translations of the Anglo Saxon Bible from the University of Toronto
- Translators and Translations of the Anglo Saxon Bible by Ian Williams, 2000.
- List of English Bible Translations
- New digital editions, with manuscript images, of much of Old English biblical verse, including Junius 11 poems and metrical psalms and psalm excerpts, are available in the Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project, eds. Martin Foys, et al.(Madison, WI: Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, 2019-), with translations from the Old English Poetry Project, Aaron Hostetter (trans.).