New English Bible - Translation

Translation

In due time, three committees of translators and one committee of literary advisers were enlisted and charged with the task of producing the New English Bible. Each of the three translation committees was responsible for a different section of the Bible. These three sections consisted of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament.

The work of translating was typically undertaken in this fashion: A member, or members, of one of the committees would produce a draft of a book, or books, of the Bible (typically from the section in which they were assigned) and submit the draft to the section committee. Occasionally a scholar outside the committee would be invited to participate in this phase of the translation process and was asked to submit a draft of the book or books with which he or she had renowned experience. This draft was then distributed among the members of the appropriate committee. Members of the committee would then meet and discuss the translation choices made in the draft. The draft that resulted from this meeting of the concerned committee was then sent to the committee of literary advisers, who would revise the draft in co-operation with the translators. When a consensus on the draft was reached, the final draft would be sent on to the Joint Committee, which was head over the four sub-committees.

For the Old Testament the translators primarily made use of the Masoretic Text as presented by Rudolf Kittel in his 3rd Edition of the Biblia Hebraica (1937). In addition to the Masoretic Text, the translators also made use of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, and the Syriac Peshitta.

For the Apocrypha the translators made the decision to follow The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, edited by H. B. Swete. Also, the translators made use of the Codex Sinaiticus (for the Book of Tobit), Theodotion's translation of the Apocrypha (for The Song of the Three, Daniel and Susanna, and Daniel, Bel and the Snake (sometimes referred to as the Dragon)), Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 (for Sirach), Codex 248 (also for Sirach), and R. L. Bensly's Latin text The Fourth Book of Ezra for 2 Esdras.

For the New Testament the New English Bible Translators relied on a large body of texts including early Greek New Testament manuscripts, early translations rendered in other languages (those aside from Greek), and the quotations of early Christian writers and speakers. The text adhered to by the translators of the New English Bible can be found in The Greek New Testament, edited by R. V. G. Tasker and published by the University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge (1964).

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