Scandinavian, Slavic, Spanish, and Swiss translations
Scandinavian versions
In pre-Reformation times, only partial translations were made, all on the basis of the Latin Vulgate and all somewhat free. The earliest and most celebrated is that of Genesis–Kings in the so-called Stjórn (“Guidance”; i.e., of God) manuscript in the Old Norwegian language, probably to be dated about 1300. Swedish versions of the Pentateuch and of Acts have survived from the 14th century and a manuscript of Joshua–Judges by Nicholaus Ragnvaldi of Vadstena from c. 1500. The oldest Danish version covering Genesis–Kings derives from 1470.
Within two years of publication, Luther’s New Testament had already influenced a Danish translation made at the request of the exiled king Christian II by Christiern Vinter and Hans Mikkelsen (Wittenberg, 1524). In 1550 Denmark received a complete Bible commissioned by royal command (the Christian III Bible, Copenhagen). A revision appeared in 1589 (the Frederick II Bible) and another in 1633 (the Christian IV Bible).
A rendering by Hans Paulsen Resen (1605–07) was distinguished by its accuracy and learning and was the first made directly from Hebrew and Greek, but its style was not felicitous and a revision was undertaken by Hans Svane (1647). Nearly 200 years later (1819), a combination of the Svaning Old Testament and the Resen–Svane New Testament was published. In 1931 a royal commission produced a new translation of the Old Testament with the New Testament following in 1948 and the Apocrypha in 1957.
The separation of Norway from Denmark in 1814 stimulated the revival of literature in the native language. The Old Testament of 1842–87 (revised, 1891) and New Testament of 1870–1904 were still intelligible to Danish readers, but the version of E. Blix (New Testament, 1889; complete Bible, 1921) is in New Norwegian. A revised Bible in this standardized form of the language, executed by R. Indrebö, was published by the Norwegian Bible Society in 1938.
The first Icelandic New Testament was the work of Oddur Gottskálksson (Roskilde, Denmark, 1540), based on the Latin Vulgate and Luther. It was not until 1584 that the complete Icelandic Scriptures were printed (at Hólar), mainly executed by Gudbrandur Thorláksson. It was very successful and became the Church Bible until displaced by the revision of Thorlákur Skúlason (1627–55), based apparently on Resen’s Danish translation. In 1827 the Icelandic Bible Society published a new New Testament and a complete Bible in 1841 (Videyjar; 1859, Reykjavík), revised and reprinted at Oxford in 1866. A completely new edition (Reykjavík, 1912) became the official Church Bible.
Soon after Sweden achieved independence from Denmark in the early 16th century, it acquired its own version of the New Testament published by the royal press (Stockholm, 1526). Luther’s New Testament of 1522 served as its foundation, but the Latin Vulgate and Erasmus’ Greek were also consulted. The first official complete Bible and the first such in any Scandinavian country was the Gustav Vasa Bible (Uppsala; 1541), named for the Swedish king under whose reign it was printed. It utilized earlier Swedish translations as well as Luther’s. A corrected version (the Gustavus Adolphus Bible, named for the reigning Swedish king) was issued in 1618, and another with minor alterations by Eric Benzelius in 1703. The altered Bible was called the Charles XII Bible, because it was printed during the reign of Charles XII. In 1917 the church diet of the Lutheran Church published a completely fresh translation directly from modern critical editions of the Hebrew and Greek originals and it received the authorization of Gustaf V to become the Swedish Church Bible.
Slavic versions
The earliest Old Church Slavonic translations are connected with the arrival of the brothers Cyril and Methodius in Moravia in 863, and resulted from the desire to provide vernacular renderings of those parts of the Bible used liturgically. The oldest manuscripts derive from the 11th and 12th centuries. The earliest complete Bible manuscript, dated 1499, was used for the first printed edition (Ostrog, 1581). This was revised in Moscow in 1633 and again in 1712. The standard Slavonic edition is the St. Petersburg revision of 1751, known as the Bible of Elizabeth.
The printing of parts of the Bulgarian Bible did not begin until the mid-19th century. A fresh vernacular version of the whole Bible was published at Sofia in 1925, having been commissioned by the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
The Serbian and Croatian literary languages are identical; they differ only in the alphabet they use. To further the dissemination of Protestantism among the southern Slavs, Count Jan Ungnad set up a press in 1560 at Urach that issued a translation of the New Testament, in both Glagolitic (1562–63) and Cyrillic (1563) characters. The efforts of the Serbian leader Vuk Karadžić to establish the Serbo-Croatian vernacular on a literary basis resulted in a new translation of the New Testament (Vienna, 1847) that went through many revisions.
The spread of the Lutheran Reformation to the Slovene-speaking provinces of Austria stimulated the need for vernacular translations. The first complete Slovene Bible, translated from the original languages but with close reference to Luther’s German, was made by Jurij Dalmatin (Wittenberg, 1584). Not until two centuries later did a Slovene Roman Catholic version, rendered from the Latin Vulgate, appear (Laibach, 1784–1802).
Between the 9th and 17th centuries the literary and ecclesiastical language of Russia was Old Slavonic. A vernacular Scriptures was thus late in developing. An incomplete translation into the Belorussian dialect was prepared by Franciscus Skorina (Prague, 1517–19) from the Latin Vulgate and Slavonic and Bohemian versions, but not until 1821 did the first New Testament appear in Russian, an official version printed together with the Slavonic. With the more liberal rule of Alexander II, the Holy Synod sponsored a fresh version of the Gospels in 1860. The Old Testament was issued at St. Petersburg in 1875. A Jewish rendering was undertaken by Leon Mandelstamm, who published the Pentateuch in 1862 (2nd ed., 1871) and the Psalter in 1864. Prohibited in Russia, it was first printed in Berlin. A complete Bible was published in Washington in 1952.
No manuscript in the Czech vernacular translation is known to predate the 14th century, but at least 50 complete or fragmentary Bibles have survived from the 15th. The first complete Bible was published in Prague in 1488 in a text based on earlier, unknown translations connected with the heretical Hussite movement. The most important production of the century, however, was that associated principally with Jan Blahoslav. Based on the original languages, it appeared at Kralice in six volumes (1579–93). The Kralice Bible is regarded as the finest extant specimen of classical Czech and became the standard Protestant version.
Closely allied to the Czech language, but not identical with it, Slovakian became a literary language only in the 18th century. A Roman Catholic Bible made from the Latin Vulgate by Jiři Palkovic̆ was printed in the Gothic script (2 vol. Gran, 1829, 1832) and another, associated with Richard Osvald, appeared at Trnava in 1928. A Protestant New Testament version of Josef Rohac̆ek was published at Budapest in 1913 and his completed Bible at Prague in 1936. A new Slovakian version by Stefan Žlatoš and Anton Jan Surjanský was issued at Trnava in 1946.
A manuscript of a late 14th-century Psalter is the earliest extant example of the Polish vernacular Scriptures, and several books of the Old Testament have survived from the translation made from the Czech version for Queen Sofia (Sárospatak Bible, 1455). Otherwise, post-Reformation Poland supplied the stimulus for biblical scholarship. The New Testament first appeared in a two-volume rendering from the Greek by the Lutheran Jan Seklucjan (Königsberg, 1553). The “Brest Bible” of 1563, sponsored by Prince Radziwiłł, was a Protestant production made from the original languages. A version of this edition for the use of Socinians (Unitarians) was prepared by the Hebraist Szymon Budny (Nieswicz, 1570–82), and another revision, primarily executed by Daniel Mikołajewski and Jan Turnowski (the “Danzig Bible”) in 1632, became the official version of all Evangelical churches in Poland. This edition was burnt by the Catholics and had to be subsequently printed in Germany. The standard Roman Catholic version (1593, 1599) was prepared by Jakób Wujek whose work, revised by the Jesuits, received the approval of the Synod of Piotrkow in 1607. A revised edition was put out in 1935.
Spanish versions
The history of the Spanish Scriptures is unusual in that many of the translations were based, not on the Latin Vulgate, but on the Hebrew, a phenomenon that is to be attributed to the unusual role played by Jews in the vernacular movement.
Nothing is known from earlier than the 13th century when James I of Aragon in 1233 proscribed the possession of the Bible in “romance” (the Spanish vernacular) and ordered such to be burnt. Several partial Old Testament translations by Jews as well as a New Testament from a Visigoth Latin text are known from this century. In 1417 the whole Bible was translated into Valencian Catalan, but the entire edition was destroyed by the Inquisition.
Between 1479 and 1504, royal enactments outlawed the vernacular Bible in Castile, Leon, and Aragon, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 transferred the centre of Spanish translation activity to other lands. In 1557, the first printed Index of Forbidden Books of the Spanish Inquisition prohibited the “Bible in Castilian romance or any other vulgar tongue,” a ban that was repeated in 1559 and remained in force until the 18th century. In 1916 the Hispano-Americana New Testament appeared in Madrid as an attempt to achieve a common translation for the entire Spanish-speaking world. The first Roman Catholic vernacular Bible from the original languages was made under the direction of the Pontifical University of Salamanca (Madrid, 1944, 9th ed. 1959).
Swiss versions
Four parts of Luther’s version were reprinted in the Swyzerdeutsch dialect in Zürich in 1524–25. The Prophets and Apocrypha appeared in 1529. A year later, the first Swiss Bible was issued with the Prophets and Apocrypha independently translated. The Swiss Bible underwent frequent revision between 1660 and 1882. A fresh translation from the original languages was made between 1907 and 1931.