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First Bible

Oliver

Penultimate Amazing
Oliver
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Aug 12, 2006
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Is there a translation of the first known version of the Bible, preferably translated into the German language?
 
There's no real "first known version" of the Bible.

For the NT there's thousands of chunks of or whole manuscripts of the wiritings that were eventually included in the NT.

The actual books that are now included in the NT were decided on over a period of hundreds of years and it was a complicated process, the very idea of a list of writings that should be accepted as "scripture" didn't appear until 100 years after Jesus, and the group of books that are commonly used today didn't appear as a group until over 300 years after Jesus.

Not sure about the OT, and no idea about the German translations sorry.

There's a lot of good info here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
 
temporalillusion said:
There's no real "first known version" of the Bible.

For the NT there's thousands of chunks of or whole manuscripts of the wiritings that were eventually included in the NT.

The actual books that are now included in the NT were decided on over a period of hundreds of years and it was a complicated process, the very idea of a list of writings that should be accepted as "scripture" didn't appear until 100 years after Jesus, and the group of books that are commonly used today didn't appear as a group until over 300 years after Jesus.

Not sure about the OT, and no idea about the German translations sorry.

There's a lot of good info here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
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I heard about the chunks that led to the Bible we know nowadays - but I thought there is some kind of first known Bible that includes the old and new testament as being published nowadays.

But thank you for the link, I might be able to compare them to the first known OT/NT-Bible once I find such a historic document.
 
It's really a complex thing, how the Bible as we know it came about.

Even "the Bible as we know it" is a bit vague, since there's many different versions of the Bible (not just translations).

Some of the earliest compilations of what would be close to what we use today I guess would be the Vulgate in Latin and the Peshitta in Syriac. Though I think we have far better translations today than those.

But it depends on what you are looking or specifically to do with it.
 
The Codex Sinaiticus is what I think you're asking for, except it's not in German. There may be a translation of it into German, but it would be a scholarly thing and hard to find.
 
boloboffin said:
The Codex Sinaiticus is what I think you're asking for, except it's not in German. There may be a translation of it into German, but it would be a scholarly thing and hard to find.
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An important work to be sure but not even close to what he is asking. There is no original work. Much of the NT was oral tradition written down after Christ died. See Misquoting Jesus.
 
Translations of he Bible into he vernacular (language of the common people) was discouraged by the church for two reasons - it consolidated the church's teaching position to be the local "font" of wisdom, and it was considered sacred text which would suffer in translation. That was one of the problems hat Martin Luther had with the church, and translations into German and English (and French and Spanish) only happened in Protestant churchs until somewhat later in hiosory.
 
Current Bible textual criticism, generally, tries to determine the nearest thing possible to the "original" Greek New Testament.

The Old Testament, as I understand it, has been handed down fairly well, at least in the Hebrew. Not so sure how accurate the translations are. As I understand it the Jews used a method of coping the text that did a pretty good job of preventing the various errors that the New Testament books accumulated over the centuries. This is largely conjecture on my part, so take it with much salt :)

For the New Testament books, the many (some 6000 or so pieces of varying size) early texts are examined and compared and an attempt made to get as near as possible to what the original said. It's doubtful the goal will be reached, but there is much honest effort being spent on the task. For a full (and more accurate description), see The Text of the New Testament, It's Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, by Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman.

The United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament, in it's latest version (4th?), will generally have the most convincing/earliest words of the New Testament, based on the available early sources and modern examinations/comparisons as determined by the UBS. For an explanation of the recent changes to the UBS' Greek New Testament, see A Textual Commentary on The Greek New Testament by Bruce M. Metzger, currently in it's 4th revised edition (NOTE: This shows changes made to the Greek. If you don't read Greek, it will be of little use I think:)). For English, I believe the New International Version will have the most up to date Greek to English translation based on the UBS Greek New Testament. I am not sure about that though. There may well be other groups doing work similar to the UBS. I don't know.

I have no idea what a good German translation would be, but perhaps you can determine that from this link.
 
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Thank you for all the good hints and links, I guess the codex sinaiticus is the closest version I was looking for. Unfortunately, the codex sinaiticus project is still in progress, so the German translation isn't completed yet. But I will bookmark and check their site from time to time for updates...
 
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