The Many Translations of the Bible Throughout the Years

Since the original manuscripts of the Bible were written in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, the texts needed to be translated so that we could understand them. In the Middle Ages several vernacular translations were made, which, in turn, helped to form modern German, English, and other languages. The most remarkable German Translator version was the one by Martin Luther which is considered to be largely responsible for the evolution of the modern German language and which is still in use today. His version was followed by Protestant versions in other languages, especially the French, Dutch, and English. Luther did his best to create a faithful translation of the Bible which sounded natural and close to common people. Luther's German Translation of the Bible fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the translation into English of the King James Bible.The Darby Bible refers to the Bible as translated from Hebrew and Greek by John Nelson Darby.

Educated at Wesminster School and Trinity College, in1825, John Nelson Darby was ordained deacon of the established Church of Ireland and the following year as priest. Soon he started to view the church he was a part of to be totally corrupt and in 1827 he broke with the Church of England and joined the Brethren movement, claiming to have been given many 'rediscovered truths.' He was dissatisfied with the existing Bible versions in French and German, and so he collaborated with German and French followers in the creation of new versions in those languages. A French Translator edition of the Bible, often referred to as the Pau Bible was published in 1885, while the Darby Bible in German is known as the "Elberfelder Bible". The 'Elberfelder Bibel' has been considered one of the most accurate and literary German Bible translations. While Luther used a mixed style of formal equivalence and interpretive translation, the Elberfelder strictly renders the text word-for-word, also trying to conform to the grammatical, syntactic and idiomatic conventions of the used Greek verbs, etc.

Darby did not feel such a need for a new translation in English, because he considered the King James Version to be adequate for most purposes, and he encouraged his followers to continue to use it. But, he decided to produce a highly literal English version of the New Testament for study purposes. Darby's version of the Old Testament was published in 1867 with two cosequent revisions in 1872 and 1884 and after his death in 1882, certain of his followers produced an English version of the Old Testament based on his French and German translations.

The first printed Italian Translator version of the Bible appeared in Venice in 1471, translated from the Latin Vulgate by Niccolò Malermi. The most popular Italian Translation of the Bible among Evangelic and Protestant Christians is the revised in 1994 version of La Riveduta by Giovanni Luzzi. The most used Catholic Bible translation in Italian before the 1971 CEI edition was the one of Archbishop Antonio Martini, but since 1971 the Italian Catholic Church has its own official version - the Bible of CEI (Conferenza Episcopale Italiana).

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