RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible "Versions
published. Three other editions were published in 1756, 1757, and 1759, the second somewhat revised. All later reprints of the Russian Church Bible are based upon this second edition, which is the authorized version of the Russian Church.
The Church Slavonic is not intelligible to the Russian people. An effort to produce a version in the vernacular was made by Frantsisk Skorina (d. after 1535), a native of Polotsk in White Russia. He published at Prague, 1517-19, twenty-two Old
Testament books in the " Russian 2. Russian language," in the preparation of which
he was greatly influenced by the Bohemian Bible of 1506 (see below, § 5). Other efforts were made during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the Church Slavonic predominated in all these efforts. Peter the Great felt that the mass of the Russian people needed a Bible in the vernacular and authorized Pastor Gltick in 1703 to prepare such an edition. Unhappily Gltick died in 1705 and nothing is known of his work. It was left to the nineteenth century in connection with the establishment of the Russian Bible Society (founded in 1812 at St. Petersburg, with the consent of Alexander I; see Bible Societies, II, 5) to prepare a Bible in the vernacular. The work was undertaken by Philaret (q.v.), rector of the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg (afterward metropolitan of Moscow), and other members of the faculty of the academy. The Gospels were published in 1818 and in 1822 the entire New Testament. In 1820 the translation of the Old Testament was undertaken, and in 1822 Philaret 's translation of the Psalms was published. In 1825 the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth were issued. The year 1826 saw an end to the activity of the Bible Society in the ban put upon all kinds of private associations, even when non-political. Not before 1858 was the work of translation resumed. In 1876 the entire Bible was published in one volume. The Old Testament books, though based upon the Hebrew, follow the order of the Septuagint and the Church Slavonic Bible. The Apocryphal books also form a part of the Russian Bible. The British and Foreign Bible Society also issued a Russian edition, omitting, however, the Apocrypha.
The Bulgarians too were provided during the nineteenth century with translations of Biblical books into the vernacular. In 1828 the New Testament was published at Bucharest (2d ed., 1833), translated by the pastors Sapunov and Seraphim. For the British and Foreign Bible Society the archimandrite Theodosius, abbot of
the Bistrica monastery, translated rian and" the NeW Testament> which was printed Servian at London in 1828. The entire edition Versions, was sent to St. Petersburg and is said to
have been destroyed there. A new translation of the New Testament was published at Smyrna in 1840 (3ded., Bucharest, 1853, and often). In 1867 the American Bible Society printed in New York a translation of the New Testament and other editions were issued at Constantinople in 1866 and The Old Testament " translated from the
1872.
original " was also published there in three parts (1862-64), but without the Apocrypha. An edition of the entire Bible " faithfully and accurately rendered from the original " was published by the same society at Constantinople in 1868 (3d ed., 1874). A translation of the New Testament into Servian was made by Vuk Stefanovid Karajic, the founder of modern Servian literature, and published at Vienna in 1817. The Old Testament was translated by Vuk's pupil Dyuro Danichic' and issued at Belgrade in 1868. The language in both is excellent. The Servian Bible of Atanasiie Ivanovic' Stoikovi<5 (published by the Russian Bible Society at St. Petersburg, 1824) is not written in the vernacular, but is a mixture of Church Slavonic and Servian.
The Bible versions for the Slovenes are most closely
connected with the activity of the Reformer of Car-
niola, Primus Truber (1507-86; see
4. Slo- Truber, Primus), and his associates venianand > ,, . , , , .
Croatian anc' successors; they were intended for "Versions, the Evangelical Slovenes. Truber translated the Gospel of Matthew, which was printed at Reutlingen in 1555 ; in 1557 the first part of the New Testament was published at Tubingen, the second part in 1560, and the complete New Testament was issued in 1582; the Psalms appeared in 1566. Dalmatin, who assisted Truber, translated the Old Testament, and an edition of the entire Scriptures in Slovenian was published under his direction at Wittenberg in 1584. Stevan Kuezmics published a New Testament for the Hungarian Slovenians in their dialect at Halle in 1771. An edition published at Guns (Koszeg) in 1848 has the Psalms added. In 1784 a part of the New Testament for the use of Roman Catholics was printed at Laibach, translated from the Vulgate by several hands. The second part of the New Testament was issued in 1786, and the Old Testament between 1791 and 1802. Efforts were also made to prepare a Bible version for the Evangelical Croats or for those who should be brought over to the Evangelical faith. A New Testament translated by Anton Dalmata and Stipan Consul was printed in Glagolitic characters (2 parts) at Tubingen, 1562-63. In the seventeenth century efforts were made to give a translation to the Catholic Croats and Servians in the so-called Illyrian dialect, but nothing was printed till the nineteenth century, when a Bible in Latin letters together with the parallel text of the Vulgate, translated into "the Ulyric language, Bosnian dialect " by Petrus Kataucsich, was published at Budapest (6 parts, 1831). It followed the Vulgate slavishly.
The Czech literature of the Middle Ages is very rich in translations of Biblical books, made from the Vulgate (cf . the list of manuscripts and prints in J. Jungmann, Historie Literatury Ceske, Prague, 1849). During the fourteenth century all parts of the Bible seem to have been translated at different times and by different hands. The oldest translations are those 5. Bohe- of the Psalter. The New Testament must also have existed at that time, for according to a statement of Wyclif, Anne, daughter of Charles IV, received in 1381 upon her marrying Richard II of England
mian Versions.
Bible Versions