What is the synodal translation of the Bible what is the meaning. Synodal translation

Appendix to the Russian edition

FIRST STEPS TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE IN SOUTHWESTERN RUSSIA

1. Francis Skaryna

The greatest religious movement, which embraced almost all Western European peoples in the 16th century and is known in world history as the Reformation, awakened the numb Church from the nightmare of human tradition. The millennial fog cleared and the Bible took its rightful place again.

When in the West, Luther, Calvin and others opened the nationwide access to the source of living water, an advanced person with a Western European education was found in southwestern Russia, who was eager to give his compatriots a Bible in the language of everyday life, accessible to all. It was Dr. Francis Skaryna. He undertook a number of editions of biblical books under the title "ELL" Russka "and published them first in Prague in 1517-1519, and then in Vilna in 1525. In the editions of Francysk Skaryna it is indicated that he" laid out "the entire Bible, but only 22 books are known Old Testament, printed by him in separate issues. Skaryna's text differs little from the text of the Old Church Slavonic Bible. Those books that were not in the Old Church Slavonic Bible, Francis Skaryna translated from the Czech Bible, published in 1506. The influence of the latter is also noticed in other books for which the Old Slavonic original existed. Skaryna's work was not popular.

2. Peresopnytsia Gospel

In 1556-1561. was written by the scribe Mikhail, the son of Archpriest Sanotsky, the Four Gospel, translated by order of Princess Golshanskaya from "Bulgarian", that is. Old Church Slavonic, into South Russian. Michael, who worked under the leadership of Gregory, Archimandrite Peresopnitsky, is, apparently, himself the translator of this so-called "Peresopnytsia Gospel", which was found by prof. Bodyansky and is kept in the library of the Poltava Theological Seminary. The text is influenced by the Czech Bible.

3. Tyapin Gospel

Around 1580, the Gospel was printed in the nomadic printing house of Vasily Tyapinsky, which is distinguished by a rather pure Belarusian language, while the Peresopnytsia Gospel is written in a language similar to the present ukrainian language... The place where the Tyapinsky Gospel was printed is unknown.

4. The gospel is instructive

In 1568, the "Teaching Gospel" was published in Zabludovo (City Gubernia). The initiative in this work belongs to the Lithuanian hetman Grigory Alexandrovich Chodkevich.

5. Translation by unknown author

Zachary Kopyutensky (died in 1627) quotes in his "LolynoZzz" excerpts from some unknown translation of the Bible and from some Gospel.

All the listed translations of southwestern Russia differ from each other in language and originals. The translators in most cases, however, adhered to the Old Church Slavonic translation.

FIRST STEPS IN MOSCOW RUSSIA

1. Pre-Petrine translation

In Muscovite Russia, the first attempts to translate the Bible into living Russian appeared not earlier than the second half of the 17th century. Prior to that, mainly, they were concerned only about the reproduction of the lists, the correction and replenishment of the generally accepted Old Slavonic text.

In 1680, the famous writer Simon Polotsky published the Rhyming Psalter in Moscow. Three years later, the translator of the ambassadorial order, Avraamy Firsov, translated the Psalter into the national language. This translation, however, caused great controversy and was banned by Patriarch Joachim.

2. Peter's translation

The importance and necessity of Bible translation was fully appreciated by Peter the Great. The case was entrusted to the German pastor Ernest Gluck, who lived from 1673-1703. in Marienburg (eastern part of Livonia). There is information that pastor Gluck studied the Latvian and Russian languages \u200b\u200band independently took up the translation of the Russian Bible, which, according to some sources, was already completed in 1698, but during the siege and capture of Marienburg in 1703, this translation died, and pastor Gluck was sent to Moscow, where he was instructed to again undertake the translation of the New Testament, which he did. In 1705, Pastor Gluck died and his translation disappeared.

HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN BIBLE SOCIETY

1. Information about the works of the Bible Society

The ordeal of the Napoleonic Wars triggered a significant religious movement in Germany and Switzerland in the first quarter of the 19th century. It also spread to Russia, but soon died out there. Emperor Alexander 1, while in Germany, entered into friendly relations with the best representatives of true Christianity of his time. To these belonged, undoubtedly, worthy of more attention in our time, the faithful Livonian Baroness von Krudener (mind, in 1824). She wandered for many years western Europespreading with the greatest selflessness the Word of God among all classes of the population. Alexander I was a frequent visitor to her wonderful Bible talks and experienced a profound change in his spiritual life. The emperor's mysticism deeply affected some of his closest associates, to whom, no doubt, Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn (1773-1844) belonged. Russia owes the strong initiative of these three representatives of high Russian society to the establishment of the "Russian Bible Society" and the publicly available translation of the New Testament into Russian.

As early as 1810, the British Bible Society began sending agents to Estonia and Finland. The first branch of the Society was opened in Abo (Finl.). Pastor Paterson, who came to St. Petersburg as an agent of the British Society, received a sympathetic reception in court circles. And on December 6, 1812, Emperor Alexander 1 signed the project presented by Prince Golitsyn for the establishment of a Bible Society in St. Petersburg, which, following the example of the British one, was supposed to print Bibles "without any notes or explanations." January 11, 1813 in the palace of Prince Golitsyn took place grand opening Society. The Society's committee included Protestant pastors, a Roman Catholic metropolitan and representatives of the highest clergy of the Orthodox Church. Prince Golitsyn was elected President of the Society. The Society has set itself the goal of printing and spreading the Word of God, first of all in Slavic, and then in other languages. Russian Empire... In addition, they decided to sell Bibles at a reduced rate for the "poor fortunate". Finally, it was decided to also print Bibles for pagans and Mohammedans who lived in Russia. Pastor Paterson contributed £ 500 from the British Bible Society for Russia. The emperor himself became a member of the newly-discovered Society, donated 25,000 rubles. and appointed an annual subsidy of 10,000 rubles. In the very first year of its existence (1813), the Society could already open six branches in different cities of Russia. In the same year, the Bible was printed in Finnish and German, and the New Testament in Armenian and Kalmyk. For the latter, it was necessary to prepare a font, since until that time nothing was printed on it. Bibles soon began to be printed in Polish and French.

In one year of its existence, the Society has printed 22,500 copies of the complete Bible and 37,700 copies. Of the New Testament. At the end of the second reporting year, the Company already had 18 vice presidents and 12 directors. They began to print Bibles in Persian, Georgian and Lithuanian. On September 4, 1814, the Society became known as the "Russian Bible Society". In 1816, the complete Old Church Slavonic Bible came out. Within seven years, 15 editions of this Bible were published. Emperor Alexander I presented the Household Society in St. Petersburg and Moscow with several book-printing workshops. Metropolitans of the Orthodox Church collected donations for the benefit of the Society. Russian generals joined the committee and began to supply their soldiers with Bibles. The Roman Catholic bishop of Lithuania ordered the translation of the Bible into the dialect of his diocese and donated 5,000 copies to the Society. Bible. On January 1, 1823, the Bible was already printed in 41 languages \u200b\u200bin a total of 184,851 copies. complete Bible and 315.928 copies. Of the New Testament. The Society sent Bibles for Armenians and Greeks to Venice, Constantinople, Asia Minor and the islands of the Archipelago. From January 1, 1824, the monthly "News of the actions and successes of the Bible Society in Russia and other states" began to be published. In the same year, the Society acquired an energetic employee in Prince Lieven. The Bible has been published in Bulgarian, Serbian, Zyryan, Votyak, Perm, Ossetian and Kyrgyz languages. An attempt has even been made to translate the New Testament into Hebrew. The parts of the Bible for the Blind were finally printed in embossed type.

2. Closure of the Society

In 1824, Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn, an active patron of the Society, was forced by a strong and hostile reactionary court party to resign. The new president reported to Emperor Alexander 1 about the dangers of Bible societies and the need to close the Russian Bible Society. In October 1824, Izvestia Society ceased, and on January 7, 1825, it was told to "hold back until permission" the first volume of the Bible printed in Russian. By a decree on April 12, 1826, Emperor Nicholas 1 ordered Metropolitan Seraphim to suspend, pending permission, the activities of the Society, as well as the actions of all biblical committees, branches and associates (up to 289 in number). By a decree on July 15, 1826, all the property of the Society, valued at 2,000,000 rubles, was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Synod.

HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN BIBLE IN THE ERA OF EMPEROR ALEXANDER I

1. Russian New Testament of 1822

More than a hundred years have passed since the death of Gluck, when the question of translating the Bible into literary Russian was raised again. And this time the main initiative belonged to the crowned person. At the end of the victorious wars against Napoleon, Alexander 1 returned to Russia and invited Prince Golitsyn, the president of the Bible Society, to take all measures to translate the Bible into Russian. On February 28, 1816, Prince Golitsyn conveyed the emperor's wishes to the Synod in a form consistent with his words. The Synod accepted the president's proposal and instructed the commission of theological schools to select from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy people capable of this important work. The finished translation texts were to be entered into the Bible Society for verification by its clergy members. After their approval, the translation was to be printed in parallel with the Slavic text. On March 16, however, the commission commissioned the translation to the rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Archimandrite Filaret and other members of the Academy, working out special instructions for translators. The Gospel of Matthew was translated by Professor Gerasim Petrovich Pavsky (1787-1863), the foremost scholar of his time; The Gospel of Mark as the rector of the Theological Seminary, Archimandrite Polycarp (d., In 1837), the Gospel of Luke, the bachelor of the Academy, Archimandrite Moiseev, and the Gospel of John, Archimandrite Philaret. In 1818, 10,000 copies of the Four Gospels were already printed. (the price is 5 rubles in banknotes). Soon after, the translation of other books of the New Testament began. The appearance of the first Russian translation was greeted with great enthusiasm by the laity and the clergy. On July 3, 1819, the sovereign authorized the stereotypical publication of the Four Gospels in a small format and already without the Slavic text. This edition was to include the Acts of the Apostles. Finally, in 1822, the entire New Testament was published, translated into the living Great Russian language. Exactly 300 years earlier, the Germans received the New Testament translated by Dr. Martin Luther. In 1824, the New Testament was first printed without the Slavic parallel text. The responsible editor of the entire translation was prof. Pavsky

2. The beginning of the translation of the Old Testament

In 1820, the translation of the Old Testament into Russian began. The Book of Genesis was translated in St. Petersburg, the Book of Exodus in Moscow and the Book of Lovit in the Kiev Theological Academy. At the same time, the Psalter published by prof. Pavsky. In January 1822, the translation of the Psalter went on sale. Within a year and a half, 10,000 copies were printed. Archimandrite Filaret also participated in the translation of the Old Testament. The translators were guided mainly by the Hebrew text, using, however, other translations as well. Until 1825, up to and including the Book of Ruth, everything was printed, when suddenly, with the closure of the Bible Society, the whole business was suspended and, only 30 years later, it was resumed again.

THE GRID THIRTY YEARS

1. Triumph of reaction

With the closure of the Bible Society, the translation of the Old Testament into Russian was also suspended. A gloomy period of reaction ensued, which lasted thirty years. The enmity against everything connected with the Bible extended far beyond the limits of prudence and went to extremes. They began to hamper the distribution of the Bible among the people. Already translated and printed, eight books of the Old Testament were not put on sale, and individual editions of the Pentateuch of Moses were burned. The sale of the New Testament without the Slavic parallel text was even stopped. The Slavic-Russian New Testament was still in circulation, but a new edition was not published, and the book gradually became a rarity. They began to consider it dangerous to allow everyone to read the Holy Scriptures without distinction. Attempts were made to prohibit the people from reading the Bible at home, considering it sufficient to hear the Gospel in churches. The chief prosecutor of the Synod, Count Protasov and Arakcheev, were especially distinguished in this direction.

2. Translation activity prof. Pavsky.

The idea of \u200b\u200btranslating the Bible, nevertheless, had convinced champions in the person of Met. Filaret, prof. Pavsky and archim. Macarius. Enduring enmity and all kinds of oppression, they nevertheless worked with amazing energy to achieve their great goal. The three of them are largely indebted to the Bible that they use to this day. In particular, the translation activity of prof. Gerasim Petrovich Pavsky. Despite the severity of the reaction, the translation of the Bible did not stop, but continued on. Prof. Over the course of 20 years, Pavsky gradually translated all the books of the Old Testament in lectures at the Theological Academy. From 1839 to 1841 these translations, without the knowledge of prof. Pavsky, were poured by students for their use in an amount of up to 500 copies. and spread far beyond the Academy, especially among the clergy. This brought on prof. Pavskiy was in big trouble and the lithographed copies were destroyed. Translation by prof. Pavsky presents the first experience of translating the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into modern Russian.

3. Translation activities of Archimandrite Makarii

In the distant Altai mountains lived in the 30s of the 19th century a remarkable Orthodox missionary, Archimandrite. Macarius (in the world Mikhail Yakovlevich Glukharev, born in 1792, mind, in 1847), who worked in a truly evangelical spirit among the savages and baptized 675 souls. He translated the entire Old Testament from the Hebrew original into Russian in order to give his newly converted flock the opportunity to read the Word of God in a language more understandable to them. In doing so, he, of course, had in mind the needs of the entire Russian people. Archim. Macarius caused harassment from the higher authorities. When he began to bother to print the translation, Metropolitan Seraphim proposed to send him to prison. In 1834, Archimandrite. Macarius sent a letter to Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow “On the need of the Russian Church to transcribe the entire Bible from original texts into modern Russian ”. Filaret, however, did not give further progress to this matter, because the entire spiritual administration of that time was extremely hostile to this matter. This did not stop the Archimandrite. Macarius. In 1837, he sent the beginning of his work to the Commission of Theological Schools, the translation of the book of Job with a letter addressed to the Emperor, asking the Imperial command to consider the translation and publish it at the expense of the commission. After 2 years, he sent to the same commission a translation of the book of the Prophet John with a new letter addressed to the Emperor. In 1840 he acquired the translation of Prof. Pavsky and, having corrected his own translation of the book of Job and Isani, presented his work to the Synod. The persistent efforts of archim. In the end, Macarius was only led to the fact that an epithemy was imposed on him. But Macarius did not lose heart, for this work became a need for his soul and the main task of his life. Gradually, he translated all the books of the Old Testament, partly in Altai, and partly in the Bolkhov Optina Monastery (Orlov, province), where he died in 1847. Translation of the books of the Holy Scriptures archim. Macarius is distinguished by the strength and expressiveness of language and vitality in speech. But fairness requires it to be noted that he corrected the translation of prof. Pavsky, than he translated himself. Nevertheless, his work served as an important guide for the subsequent translation of the Bible into Russian.

TRANSLATION ACTIVITIES IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY

1. The mediation of Met. Filareta

One of the most zealous advocates of the idea of \u200b\u200btranslating the Bible into Russian was the Moscow Metropolitan Philaret (in the world Vasily Mikhailovich Drozdov, born in 1783, died in 1867). He was one of the most influential spiritual figures of the 19th century. Realizing quite clearly the importance of this matter, he strove with rare energy to realize his cherished thought, being able to patiently wait for the favorable by that time. This time came with the accession of Emperor Alexander P. During the coronation of the new emperor, Met. Filaret managed to win over the highest representatives of the Orthodox Church in favor of his great enterprise of translating the Bible into Russian.

2. Manifesto of Emperor Alexander II

On March 20, 1858, the following determination of the Holy Synod took place, which was approved by the Highest on May 5 of the same year: “The translation into Russian, first of the books of the New Testament, and then gradually of other parts of Holy Scripture, is necessary and useful, but not for use in churches, for which the Slavic text should remain inviolable, but for only one aid to the understanding of Holy Scripture. This translation should be started with all possible discretion through persons experienced in the knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages, according to the election and approval of the Holy Synod. "

3. Working method

Soon after this, the very work of translation (first of the New Testament) was distributed among our four Theological Academies, which were given special instructions, in terms of ensuring the accuracy and comprehensibility of the translation and the literary presentation of it. One of the three days in attendance at the Synod was designated solely for the consideration of the progressively presented translation of the Bible, previously reviewed by each of the members of the Synod at home. Finally, the translation was sent to Moscow to Met. Filaret while he was alive.

4. New Testament of 1862

In 1860, a Russian translation of the Four Gospels was published, and in 1862, a translation of all other parts of the New Testament. So exactly 40 years have passed since the publication of the previous translation of the New Testament. For 35 years, the Russian New Testament was printed only abroad (in London and Leipzig). Comparing both translations, we find that the difference between them is not very great. The 1862 New Testament text has been printed with minor revisions to this day.

5. Translation Committee for the Old Testament

For the translation of the Old Testament in 1860, at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, a special committee was elected, consisting of three persons. The translation of some historical and teaching books was entrusted to prof. Holy Scripture, to Moses Alexandrovich Golubev (1824-1869); after the death of prof. Golubev, his place was taken by prof. Pavel Ivanovich Savvaitov (1815-1895), famous archaeologist and historian. The most remarkable translator was prof. Daniil Avraamovich Khvolson (1819-1911), a baptized Jew and a first-class scientist with a brilliant Western European education (Dr. Phil. Leipzig University). About 2/3 of all Old Testament books have been translated by prof. Khvolson. For the British Bible Society, Khvolson, together with Savvaitov, translated 3/4 of all Old Testament books into Russian. The third member of the translation committee was prof. Evgraf Ivanovich Lovyagin. The aged Metropolitan Gregory of St. Petersburg, one of the leaders of the Russian Bible Society, took an active part in this matter and gave to the leadership of the Academy a copy of the translation of eight books of the Bible, made by prof. Pavsky and printed in 1825.

6. Russian Synodal Bible of 1876

In the St. Petersburg committee, the Bible was translated from the Hebrew text. The translators, however, were constantly guided by the ancient Greek translation of 70 interpreters (Septuagint), the Syrian, Arabic and Chaldean texts, as well as the translation of the Roman Catholic Church (Vulgate). The main translator was prof. Khvolson. From 1861 they began to print new translation Bibles in the academic journal Christian Reading, where philological notes were given. In the journal "Orthodox Review" was published in 1860-1867. translation by archim. Makariya (Glukhareva). In 1867, the Synod began publishing the complete Bible and accepted the translation published in the Christian Reading magazine for the books of the Old Testament. The conference of the remaining Theological Academies was instructed to start revising this translation and submit its comments on this subject to the Synod. The continuation of the translation was entrusted to the former Petersburg committee. In these preparatory work The synod's successor was most attended by the successor of Met. Gregory Met. Isidore and a member of the Synod, Protopresbyter Vasily Borisovich Bazhanov (1800-1883). Bazhanov in 1835 took the chair of prof. Pavsky and was the teacher and educator of Alexander II the Liberator. Under the supervision of Bazhanov, the printing of the Bible itself was carried out in the synodal printing house. The first part of the Russian Bible: "The Pentateuch of Moses" was published in 1868. Then the printing of the Bible in parts continued without interruption, and the entire edition was completed in the summer of 1875. In 1876, for the first time in one volume, a complete Russian Bible appeared, published "with the blessing of the Synod." So, half a century after the closure of the Russian Bible Society, the Russian people received the complete Bible in an accurate and thorough translation into the living Russian language. In this circumstance, it is not difficult to note the finger of God. Prince Golitsyn, prof. Pavsky, Met. Filaret, archim. Macarius and others were not destined to see the fulfillment of their ardent aspirations. They went to the grave before their cherished ideas, cherished by them for decades in the difficult times of reaction, were fulfilled. 1876 \u200b\u200bis a bright year in the history of Russian culture and the Russian Church. This translation of the Bible into Russian is the property of the entire Russian people to this day. Millions of Russian people found in him consolation for the soul and the way to eternal life. The language of the Russian Synodal Bible has become something native to every Russian believer. With regard to the accuracy of the transmission of the sacred original, the Russian Synodal translation of the Bible can safely withstand comparison with the best newest Western European translations. The Synodal Russian Bible was published in the order and correlation of the Ancient Greek Bible (Septuagint) and the Church Slavonic Bible. The canonical books of the Old Testament have been translated from the Hebrew, and the non-canonical books have been translated from the Greek and Latin originals in which they have been preserved. The latest books are placed in the very places that they occupy in the Greek and Church Slavonic Bibles. The pronunciation of the biblical names is Greek, not Jewish, since they have long been accustomed to the first.

7. New translations of the Russian Bible

In 1951-1965. in Paris, on the initiative of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a new translation of the New Testament into modern Russian was undertaken. The commission was headed by Bishop Kassian (Bezobrazov), rector of the Orthodox Russian Theological Academy in Paris; the Commission included: prof. A.V. Kartashev, writer B.K. Zaitsev, prof. ON. Kulomzin, prof. V.V. Veidle, rushing. I. Melia, prof. pastor A.P. Vasiliev, prof. V.N. Lossky, Byzantologist prof. V.N. Raevsky, representatives of YMCA-Press (USA), and others. The Commission based its work on the following guiding principles: 1. Fidelity to the Greek original, according to its oldest manuscripts, in the best scientific publications of the last half of the 20th century. 2. Modern literary language. 3. Preservation, within these limits, of the language and style of the previous synodal translations of 1819 and 1862. This edition was published in 1970 in London. Currently (1976), the World Union of Bible Societies is undertaking a revision and new translation of the Old and New Testaments (in the USSR and abroad).

Revelation

Description

Widely used on the internet and in biblical computer programs The text of the Synodal Translation was prepared by the German mission "Light in the East" with the participation of the Russian Bible Society in the early 90s of the twentieth century and reproduces the Orthodox edition of the Bible in 1988, with some borrowings in non-canonical books from the Brussels Bible (Protestant editions of the Synodal Translation, in addition to the number books differed, for example, in punctuation or spelling options - "holy" / "holy", "come" / "come", etc.). It is available in three versions: the full text of the Synodal Translation with non-canonical books, the text of the canonical books alone (in a Protestant environment) and the text of the canonical books with Strong's numbers.

After publication, the translation "met with a lot of criticism, both scientifically and especially in the literary sense." According to I. Sh. Shifman, the desire of translators to follow Orthodox dogma has led to the fact that "as a result, the Synodal Translation contains numerous deviations from the Masoretic text, as well as tendentious interpretations of the original." IM Dyakonov indicates that this translation "does not correspond to the level of scientific requirements."

Translation history

The history of the Russian translation of the Bible goes back to the Russian Bible Society, created on the initiative of Alexander I, under the auspices of which the translation work began approximately.

The translation was made on the basis of the Masoretic text, but in full accordance with Orthodox dogma.

The Synodal translation of the New Testament part of the Bible was based on the printed editions of the Greek New Testament, first of all - Christian Friedrich Mattei (1803-1807) and Johannes Martin Augustine Scholz (1830-1836). In brackets in the Russian translation were entered words that were absent in these books, but were present in Church Slavonic texts.

Alternative translations

In the 19th century, other attempts were made to make a Russian translation; some of them are very innovative and bold, such as: translations of Archpriest. Gerasim Pavsky († 1863), Archimandrite Makariy Glukharev († 1847); were rejected and even banned by the Synod.

Notes (edit)

Literature

10th anniversary of the Russian translation of the Bible. // « Church Vdomosti published under the Holy Governing Sunodѣ". Additions. February 13, 1916, No. 7, pp. 196-208 (Speech of Professor I. E. Evseev on January 31, 1916 in the assembly hall of the Imperial Petrograd Theological Academy at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Scientific Publication of the Slavic Bible, dedicated to the memory of the centenary of the beginning of the Russian Synodal Translation Bible).

Links

The Beginning of the History of the Russian Translation of the Bible and the Russian Bible Society
Hieromonk Alexy (Makrinov). Contribution of the St. Petersburg - Leningrad Theological Academy to the development of biblical studies (translations of the Holy Scriptures into Russian and biblical textual criticism)
The experience of translating the sacred books of the Old Testament into Russian by Metr. Filaret Drozdov (with Hebrew text).
Anniversary of the synodal translation of the Bible Svobodanews.ru 28.12.06

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On October 4, 2016, a scientific and practical conference was held in Moscow, timed to coincide with the 140th anniversary of the creation of the Synodal Translation of the Bible into Russian. The event was organized by the Christian Interfaith Advisory Committee. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, made a report at the conference.

1. We are gathered today to celebrate important date in the history of Christianity in Russia - the 140th anniversary of the Synodal Bible translation. It is natural for a believer to honor with gratitude the memory of those who gave him the opportunity to touch the Good News, read the Scriptures on native language... The anniversary of the biblical translation is a holiday for all Christians in Russia.

Philo of Alexandria, who lived at the beginning of our era, wrote that the Alexandrian Jews annually celebrated the anniversary of the translation of the Bible into Greek, meeting on the island of Pharos (where, according to Tradition, the Seventy Interpreters translated the Pentateuch). "And not only the Jews," Philo writes, "but also many other people come here to honor the place where the light of interpretation first shone, and to thank God for this ancient boon, which is always new."

The Slavic peoples honor the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius with gratitude, who laid the foundation for the Slavic Bible. In that era when the Western Church did not encourage translations into popular languages, Cyril, Methodius and their disciples gave the Slavs the Bible in a dialect that was understandable and native to them. In Bulgaria, Russia and some other countries, the memory of the Solunski brothers is celebrated at the state level - as a day of enlightenment, culture and slavic writing.

The creators of the Synodal Translation deserve no less gratitude from our side. It is in this translation that millions of Russian-speaking people in Russia and abroad know and read the Bible.

At the same time, unlike the situation that often takes place in other countries, where different Christian confessions use different translations of Holy Scripture, in Russia the Synodal Translation does not separate, but unites Christians of different confessions. A vivid evidence of this is our meeting today, which brought together representatives of the Christian churches that use the Synodal Translation.

There are differences between the “Orthodox” and “Protestant” editions of the Synodal translation, but they concern only certain passages of the Old Testament. In the "Protestant" editions, the so-called "non-canonical books of the Old Testament" are omitted; these are the second and third books of Ezra, the books of Judith, Tobit, the books of the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, the letter of Jeremiah, the book of the prophet Baruch and three Maccabean books. All these books were present in the handwritten biblical tradition of the Middle Ages, but did not enter the biblical canon of Protestant communities due to the fact that they were written later than the rest of the books of the Old Testament and are not included in the Jewish canon.

In the Old Testament part of the "Protestant" editions of the Synodal Translation, the insertions on the Septuagint, which are present in the "Orthodox" editions, are omitted - the places where the translation of the Hebrew Bible is supplemented with inserts made from the Greek text. All these discrepancies, however, are marginal in comparison with the main message of the Old Testament, which for all Christians of Russia sounds in a single translation.

There is no discrepancy between the "Orthodox" and "Protestant" Bibles when it comes to the heart of our faith - the New Testament.

2. The beginning of biblical enlightenment in our country dates back to the time of the Baptism of Rus. The oldest monuments of the Russian language are the Ostromir Gospel, written in 1056-1057. for St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, and the so-called "Novgorod Psalter", which dates from the end of the X - the beginning of the XI century, i.e. only one or two decades later than the Baptism of Rus. Both of the oldest monuments of the Russian language are biblical texts. This clearly tells us that the Russian language, Russian writing, Russian culture are inseparable from the Russian Bible.

Thanks to the works of Saints Cyril, Methodius and their disciples, spiritual literature in the national language existed in Russia from the very beginning. But, like any living human language, the Russian language has changed. By the beginning of the 19th century, the gap between the Church Slavonic language and the language everyday communication increases so much that Slavic texts have become obscure. Many representatives of the aristocracy - for example, Pushkin or Emperor Alexander I - if they wanted to read the Bible, they had to read it in French. There was no Bible in Russian, but Slavic was already difficult to understand. In November 1824, shortly after his arrival at Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin wrote to his brother in St. Petersburg: “Bible, Bible! And by all means French! " In other words, Pushkin specifically asks to send him not an obscure Church Slavonic Bible, but a French written in a language that he understands.

By the end of the 18th century, the translation of Scripture into Russian was on the agenda. In 1794, prepared by Archbishop Methodius (Smirnov) "To the Romans the Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul with Interpretation" was published, where, in parallel with the Slavic text, a Russian translation was given. This was the first translation of a biblical text into Russian, understood as a language other than Church Slavonic.

A new stage in the history of the Russian Bible falls on the beginning of the 19th century, in the era of Alexander I. During the war of 1812, which Alexander I perceived as a test sent by God, his personal "biblical conversion" took place. He becomes a deeply religious person, the Bible (in French translation) becomes his reference book.

In the same 1812, a representative of the British Bible Society, John Patterson, arrived in Russia. His proposal to form a Bible Society in Russia receives warm support from the Russian emperor, unexpected for Patterson himself. On December 6, 1812, Alexander I approved the report of Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn, a supporter of biblical enlightenment, on the advisability of opening the St. Petersburg Bible Society. On September 4, 1814, it received the name of the Russian Bible Society. Prince Golitsyn became the President of the Society. It was created as inter-confessional; it included representatives of the main Christian denominations of the Russian Empire. This experience of cooperation between different confessions is an important example for today's Christians in Russia.

The Society is dedicated to the translation and publication of the Bible. Over the ten years of its existence, it has published over 876,000 copies of biblical books in 29 languages; of them in 12 languages \u200b\u200b- for the first time. For the beginning of the 19th century, these are huge circulations. This was possible only thanks to the attention and personal support of Emperor Alexander I. The Russian language was not left without attention.

On February 28, 1816, Prince A.N. Golitsyn reported to the Holy Synod the will of Alexander I: “His Imperial Majesty ... sees with regret that many of the Russians, by the nature of the upbringing they received, were removed from the knowledge of the ancient Slovenian dialect, not without extreme difficulty they can use the only dialects published for them in this sacred books, so some in this case resort to the aid of foreign translations, and most of them cannot even have this ... His Imperial Majesty finds ... so that for russian people, under the supervision of the clergy, the New Testament was transcribed from the ancient Slavic to the new Russian dialect ”.

Along the way, however, the plans of the Russian Bible Society became more ambitious: it was about translating not just the New Testament, but the entire Bible, and not from the "ancient Slavic", but from the originals - Greek and Hebrew.

The main inspirer, organizer, and to a large extent the performer of the translation of the Bible into Russian was the rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Archimandrite Philaret (Drozdov), in the future Metropolitan of Moscow, canonized by the Orthodox Church. He developed the rules for translators and became, in fact, the chief editor of all translations performed, the last resort in their preparation for publication.

In 1819, the Four Gospels were published. In 1821 - the complete New Testament. In 1822 - the Psalter. One of the first Hebraists in Russia, Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky, was responsible for translating the Old Testament. In 1824, the first edition of the Pentateuch was prepared and printed, but it did not go on sale. It was decided to add the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth to the Pentateuch and publish them together in the form of the so-called Eight Books.

Meanwhile, an event fatal for the translation took place: in May 1824, due to palace intrigues initiated by Count Arakcheev and Archimandrite Photius (Spassky), Alexander I dismissed Prince Golitsyn. The new president of the Society, Metropolitan Seraphim (Glagolevsky), made every effort to stop the translation of the Bible into Russian, and the Bible Society ceased to function. Almost the entire edition of the newly printed Pentateuch with the addition of the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth (9,000 copies) was burned at the end of 1825 at the brick factory of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. On April 12, 1826, under the influence of Count Arakcheev and his associates, Emperor Nicholas I suspended the activities of the Society by his decree "until the Highest permission."

Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky and Archimandrite Macarius (Glukharev), who heroically continued in these years as individuals, work on the translation of Scripture into Russian, had to experience the displeasure of the church authorities of that time.

The stoppage of work on the Russian translation of the Bible and, shortly thereafter, the closure of the Russian Bible Society were caused not only by palace intrigues and the personal quarrel between Alexander I and Prince Golitsyn. Opponents of translation, especially the famous Admiral Shishkov, insisted on the special sacred nature of the Slavic language and the inability of the Russian language to convey religious content. “... We can judge what difference in the height and strength of the language should exist between the Holy Scriptures in Slavonic and other languages: in those, one thought is preserved; in our minds this is dressed with the magnificence and importance of words, ”writes Shishkov. In this perspective, the question inevitably arose: is there a need for a translation of the Bible into Russian in the presence of Slavic?

“By an unusually happy coincidence slovenian language has the advantage over Russian, over Latin, Greek, and over all possible languages \u200b\u200bthat have an alphabet, that there is not a single harmful book on it, "wrote one of the most prominent representatives of Slavophilism, Ivan Kireevsky. Of course, any Slavic scholar will say that this statement is not true: in ancient Russian literature we find many “renounced books” rejected by the Church, various “magicians” and “charmers”, books with openly heretical content. But the opinion of a special - exclusive, almost divine nature church Slavonic - was expressed in our country over and over again. It is repeated in our days.

In order to give this opinion an ecclesiastical assessment, it is necessary to recall, in particular, the history of the translation of the Bible into slavic language... We know that attempts to declare some languages \u200b\u200b"sacred" and all others "profane" have been repeatedly made. Saints Cyril and Methodius, the founders of Slavic writing, had to struggle with the so-called “trilingual heresy,” whose apologists believed that only three languages \u200b\u200bare permissible in Christian worship and literature: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. It was by the feat of the Thessalonian brothers that the "trilingual heresy" was overcome.

The ministry of the New Testament, as the Apostle Paul writes, is the ministry “not of the letter, but of the spirit, because the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3: 6). From the very beginning of Christian history, the Church's attention was drawn to the message, to preaching, to the mission, and not to a fixed text in a specific "sacred" language. This is radically different, for example, from the attitude towards the sacred text in rabbinic Judaism or in Islam. For rabbinic Judaism, the Bible is fundamentally untranslatable, and translation or transposition can only bring one closer to understanding the only true text, which is the Jewish Masoretic text for a believing Jew. Likewise, for Islam, the Qur'an is fundamentally untranslatable, and a Muslim who wants to know the Qur'an must learn Arabic. But such an attitude towards the sacred text is completely alien to the Christian tradition. Suffice it to say that the Gospels that brought the words of the Savior to us were not written in the language in which the Savior spoke (Aramaic or Hebrew). The Gospels - the main source of our knowledge about the preaching of the Savior - contain His speeches not in the original, but in translation into Greek. We can say that the very life of the Christian Church began with translation.

It is very important for us that the Orthodox Church has never canonized any one text or translation, any one manuscript or one edition of Holy Scripture. There is no single generally accepted text of the Bible in the Orthodox tradition. There are discrepancies between Scripture quotes from the Fathers; between the Bible accepted in the Greek Church and the Church Slavonic Bible; between Church Slavonic Bible texts and the Russian Synodal Translation recommended for home reading. These discrepancies should not bother us, because for different texts on different languages, in different translations there is a single Good News.

The question of the canonization of the Church Slavonic Bible as a text "self-authenticated, like the Latin Vulgate" was raised in the 19th century. Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Count N.A.Protasov (1836-1855). However, as St. Philaret of Moscow writes, “The Holy Synod on the works of correcting the Slavic Bible did not proclaim the Slavic text exclusively independent, and thus far-sightedly blocked the way for those difficulties and confusion, which in this case would have been the same or even greater than those that occurred in the Roman Church. from the proclamation of an independent text of the Vulgate ”.

It was thanks to Saint Philaret that the issue of the Russian translation of the Bible, pushed aside and seemed to be forgotten after the closure of the Bible Society, was again put on the agenda, when the social stagnation that characterized Russia during the time of Nicholas I was replaced by the time of reforms associated with the name of Alexander II. On March 20, 1858, the Holy Synod decided to begin, with the permission of the Sovereign Emperor, a Russian translation of the Holy Scriptures. On May 5, 1858, Alexander II approved this decision.

The translation was done by four theological academies. Metropolitan Filaret personally reviewed and edited the books of the Bible as they were prepared for publication. In 1860, the Four Gospels were published, in 1862 - the entire New Testament. The complete Bible - in 1876, after the death of Saint Philaret. In total, the translation of the New Testament took 4 years, the Old Testament - 18 years.

As in the beginning of the 19th century, a fierce controversy unfolded around the translation. However, the need for a Russian translation for the very existence of the Russian Church was already so obvious that the publication of the Synodal Translation was supported by both ecclesiastical and secular authorities. Almost immediately after the appearance of the Synodal translation, the Bible became one of the most large-circulation and most widespread books in Russia.

It is safe to say that over the past 140-year history of its existence, the Synodal Translation has made a tremendous shift in Russian culture and ensured the development of Russian-language theology at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century.

The historical correctness of the supporters of the translation of the Bible into Russian became evident during the trials that befell Russian Christians in the 20th century. Thanks to the Synodal Translation, the Holy Scriptures were with believers even when spiritual education, including teaching the Church Slavonic language, was practically prohibited, when church books were confiscated and destroyed. The Bible in Russian, available for reading and practice, helped people to maintain their faith during the years of persecution and laid the foundations for the revival of religious life after the fall of state atheism. Many of us still remember how old yellowed books were carefully kept in the families of our parents, how thin "Brussels" editions of the Bible on tissue paper were smuggled from abroad. The synodal translation is our precious treasure, this is the Bible of the new martyrs.

After the abolition of the persecution of the Church, since the 1990s, the Bible in the Synodal translation again becomes one of the most widely published and distributed books in Russia. Starting from the middle of the twentieth century, in almost all Orthodox publications, biblical quotations began to be cited according to the text of the Synodal Translation (previously, exclusively according to the Slavic text of the Elizabethan Bible). The synodal translation formed the basis for a number of translations of the Bible into the languages \u200b\u200bof nations Russian Federation (such as, for example, Kryashen or Chuvash).

3. Paying tribute and gratitude to the creators of the Synodal Translation, we cannot but take into account the constructive criticism directed at it.

There are numerous editorial flaws in the Synodal Translation. Often the same proper name in different books (and sometimes within the same book) is transmitted in the Synodal translation in different ways, and on the contrary, sometimes different Hebrew names coincide in the Russian transcription. For example, one and the same Israeli city of Hatzor is called now Hazor, now Hazor, now Esora, now Nazor. Often, proper nouns are translated as if they were common nouns or even verbs, and in some cases, common nouns are transcribed as proper nouns. There is an inaccuracy in the transmission of realities, everyday life and social characteristics of the ancient world, unknown or misunderstood by the science of the XIX century.

Some passages may mislead the reader. For example, in the Synodal translation of the book of the prophet Malachi (2:16) we read: "... if you hate her (that is, the wife of your youth), let go, says the Lord God of Israel." However, both the Hebrew and Greek texts here suggest the opposite — that God hates divorce. (Slavic text: “But if you hate, let go, the Lord God of Israel says, and will cover the wickedness of your thoughts.”)

The Synodal translation of the New Testament has been done with greater care than the translation of the Old Testament. However, many claims can be made against the Synodal translation of the New Testament. It may be recalled that when the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev asked N.N. Glubokovsky to compile a list of inaccuracies in the Synodal translation of the New Testament, he answered him with five notebooks of corrections.

I will give just one example of such an inaccuracy, which recently caught my eye while reading the book of the Acts of the Apostles. This book tells how during the stay of the Apostle Paul in Ephesus "there was a great rebellion against the way of the Lord." The head of the guild of silversmiths gathered a crowd, which expressed their indignation at the preaching of Christians by shouting for two hours: "Great is Artemis of Ephesus!" Then, in order to calm the people down, a certain Alexander was summoned from the people, who, among other things, said: “Men of Ephesus! What person does not know that the city of Ephesus is the servant of the great goddess Artemis and Diopet? " (Acts 19: 23-35).

We know who Artemis is. But who is Diopetus? One would assume that this is one of the Greek gods or heroes of ancient mythology. But you will not find such a god in the Greek pantheon, and there is no such hero in Greek myths. The word διοπετής / diopetês, mistakenly translated as a proper name ("Diopetus"), literally means "cast down by Zeus," that is, fallen from the sky. Euripides in the tragedy "Iphigenia in Taurida" uses this term in relation to the statue of Artemis of Taurida, meaning that it fell from the sky, that is, it is not made by hands. The main pagan shrine of Ephesus was the statue of Artemis of Ephesus, and, probably, Alexander, in his address to the Ephesians, pointed to the idea of \u200b\u200bthis statue as not made by hands. Therefore, it would be necessary to translate his words as follows: "What person does not know that the city of Ephesus is the servant of the goddess Artemis, great and not made by hands?" (or "great and fallen from heaven", or literally - "great and cast down by Zeus"). Not a trace remains of the mysterious Diopet.

Most often, when discussing the shortcomings of the Synodal translation, they point to its textological and stylistic eclecticism. On this point, the critics of the Synodal translation "from the left" and "from the right" converge. The textual basis of the Synodal Translation is not Greek, but not entirely Jewish either. The language is not Slavic, but not quite Russian either.

The chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod in 1880-1905, Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, believed that the Synodal translation should be close to the Slavic text.

On the contrary, Ivan Evseevich Evseev, chairman of the Russian Biblical Commission, in his report "The Council and the Bible", which he presented to the All-Russian Church Council of 1917, criticized the Synodal translation for being excessively archaic and inconsistent with norms. literary language: “... The Russian Synodal Translation of the Bible ... was completed, however, recently - only in 1875, but it fully reflected all the features of not a beloved brainchild, but a stepson of the spiritual department, and it urgently requires revision or, even better, a complete replacement ... the original is not consistent: now it conveys the Hebrew original, then the Greek text LXX, then the Latin text - in a word, in this translation everything is done to deprive it of its character of integrity, homogeneity. True, these properties are invisible to the average pious reader. Much more essential is his literary backwardness. The language of this translation is heavy, outdated, artificially close to Slavic, lagged behind the general literary language for a whole century ... it is a completely unacceptable language in the literature of the pre-Pushkin era, not brightened up, moreover, by a flight of inspiration, or by the artistry of the text ... "

I cannot agree with this assessment of the Synodal Translation. Even today, a hundred years after Yevseev came out with his criticism, the Synodal translation remains readable, accessible, easy to understand. Moreover, none of the Russian translations that appeared after him surpassed him either in accuracy, or in comprehensibility, or in poetic beauty. This is my personal opinion, and someone may argue with it, but I consider it necessary to voice it in this respectable audience.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that Evseev, in fact, proposed to the All-Russian Church Council a whole program of work on the Slavic and Russian Bibles. In many respects, it was precisely to resolve issues related to the Synodal translation that the Council proposed to create a Bible Council under the Supreme Church Administration. Consideration of the report on the establishment of the Bible Council was scheduled for the spring session of the Council in 1919. As you know, this session was not destined to meet, and the whole range of problems associated with improving the Synodal translation remained unresolved.

The tragedy that befell Russia after 1917 for a long time pushed aside many of the issues discussed at the Council, including issues related to the translation of the Bible. In a situation where the very existence of Christianity in Russia was threatened, there was no time to improve the existing biblical translations. For a long seventy years, the Bible fell into the number of prohibited books: it was not published, was not reprinted, was not sold in bookstores, and even in churches it was almost impossible to get it. To deprive people of access to the main book of humanity is only one of the crimes of the godless regime. But this crime clearly characterizes the essence of the ideology that was implanted by force.

4. Today times have changed, and the Bible in the Synodal translation is freely sold, including in secular bookstores. The books of the Holy Scriptures are also distributed free of charge, enjoying constant demand. For example, after two years ago the St. Gregory the Theologian Charitable Foundation, in cooperation with the Moscow Patriarchate Publishing House, initiated a program of free distribution of the book "New Testament and Psalter", more than 750 thousand copies were distributed. Moreover, the distribution was addressed - the book was received only by those who really wanted it, and not by random passers-by on the street.

New translations of individual books of the Bible have also appeared. These translations are of very different quality. So, for example, in the early 1990s, a translation of the epistles of the Apostle Paul, made by V.N. Kuznetsova. Here are just a few quotes: “Oh, you would have tolerated me, even if I’m a little stupid! Well, be patient, please ... I believe that I am in no way inferior to these very super-apostles. Maybe I am not a master of speaking, but as far as knowledge is concerned, this is another matter ... I repeat once again: do not take me for a fool! And if you do, then let me be a fool a little longer and boast a little! What I am about to say is certainly not from the Lord. In this boasting venture, I will speak like a fool ... Let anyone pretend to be anything - I still speak like a fool ... ”(2 Cor. 11: 1-22). “I'm completely mad! You brought me to this! You should praise me! Let it be so, you say, yes, I have not burdened you, but I am a dodger and by cunning I got my hands on you. Maybe I was able to profit through someone from those whom I sent to you? " (2 Cor. 12: 11-18). “Food for the belly and the belly for food ... And you want to turn a part of the body of Christ into the body of a prostitute? God forbid!" (1 Cor. 6: 13-16).

As I wrote in a review published in the "Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate" shortly after the publication of this blasphemous craft (in other words, I can hardly name this "translation"), when you get acquainted with such texts, you get the feeling that you are not reading the Holy Scriptures, but you are present at the squabble in the kitchen of a communal apartment. The appearance of this feeling is facilitated by a peculiar set of words ("fool", "boast", "undertaking", "crazy", "praise", "dodger", "profit", "belly", "prostitute") and idioms ("not a master talk "," got my hands on it "," the most that neither is "," they brought me "). The sacred text is relegated to the marketplace, bazaar, kitchen level.

Of course, such translations only compromise the biblical translation business. But this does not mean that work on the translation of the Holy Scriptures should not be carried out at all. Today, celebrating the anniversary of the Synodal Translation, we must think about how we can be worthy of our great tradition dating back to Saints Cyril and Methodius, who, in spite of the "trilingual heresy" and persecution by the Latin clergy, gave the Slavic Bible to the Slavic peoples, as well as to Saint Philaret and other creators of the Synodal Translation.

Constant care for the Word of God to be intelligible and close to our contemporaries is the duty of the Church. But in what concrete actions should this care be expressed? Do we need a new translation of the Holy Scriptures, or is it enough to edit the existing Synodal one? Or maybe you don't need to edit it at all?

I will share, again, my personal opinion... It seems to me that today one should not aim at a complete new translation of the Bible. But an edited edition of the Synodal translation could be prepared, in which the most obvious inaccuracies (like the mention of Diopetus in the book of Acts) would be corrected. It is clear that in order to prepare such a version of the Synodal Translation, a group of competent, highly qualified specialists in the field of biblical studies is needed. It is also obvious that the new edition of the translation must be approved by the church authorities.

The synodal translation is not a “sacred cow” that cannot be touched. The inaccuracies of this translation are obvious and quite numerous. And besides, the New Testament textual criticism itself today is at a completely different level than 140 years ago. It is impossible not to take into account her achievements when working on the translation of the Holy Scriptures.

I hope that the celebration of the 140th anniversary of the Synodal Translation will be a reason to think about its improvement.

Report by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk at the inter-Christian conference dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the Synodal Bible Translation (Moscow, October 4, 2016)

1. We have gathered today to mark an important date in the history of Christianity in Russia - the 140th anniversary of the Synodal Bible translation. It is natural for a believer to honor with gratitude the memory of those who gave him the opportunity to touch the Good News, to read the Scriptures in their native language. The anniversary of the biblical translation is a holiday for all Christians in Russia.

Philo of Alexandria, who lived at the beginning of our era, wrote that the Alexandrian Jews annually celebrated the anniversary of the translation of the Bible into Greek, meeting on the island of Pharos (where, according to legend, the Seventy Interpreters translated the Pentateuch). "And not only the Jews," Philo writes, "but also many other people come here to honor the place where the light of interpretation first shone, and to thank God for this ancient boon, which is always new."

The Slavic peoples honor with gratitude the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who laid the foundation for the Slavic Bible. In the era when the Western Church did not encourage translations into popular languages, Cyril, Methodius and their disciples gave the Slavs the Bible in a dialect that was understandable and native to them. In Bulgaria, Russia and some other countries, the memory of the Solunski brothers is celebrated at the state level - as a day of enlightenment, culture and Slavic writing.

The creators of the Synodal Translation deserve no less gratitude from our side. It is in this translation that millions of Russian-speaking people in Russia and abroad know and read the Bible.

In the Old Testament part of the “Protestant” editions of the Synodal Translation, the insertions on the Septuagint, which are present in the “Orthodox” editions, are omitted - the places where the translation of the Hebrew Bible is supplemented by inserts made from the Greek text. All these discrepancies, however, are marginal in comparison with the main message of the Old Testament, which for all Christians of Russia sounds in a single translation.

There is no discrepancy between the "Orthodox" and "Protestant" Bibles when it comes to the heart of our faith - the New Testament.

2. The beginning of biblical enlightenment in our country dates back to the time of the Baptism of Rus. The oldest monuments of the Russian language are the Ostromir Gospel, written in 1056-1057. for the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, and the so-called "Novgorod Psalter", which dates from the end of the X - the beginning of the XI century, i.e. only one or two decades later than the Baptism of Rus. Both of the oldest monuments of the Russian language are biblical texts. This clearly tells us that the Russian language, Russian writing, Russian culture are inseparable from the Russian Bible.

Thanks to the works of Saints Cyril, Methodius and their disciples, spiritual literature in the national language existed in Russia from the very beginning. But, like any living human language, the Russian language has changed. By the beginning of the 19th century, the gap between the Church Slavonic language and the language of everyday communication was growing so much that the Slavic texts became obscure. Many representatives of the aristocracy - for example, Pushkin or Emperor Alexander I - if they wanted to read the Bible, they had to read it in French. There was no Bible in Russian, but Slavic was already difficult to understand. In November 1824, shortly after his arrival at Mikhailovskoye, Pushkin wrote to his brother in St. Petersburg: “Bible, Bible! And by all means French! " In other words, Pushkin specifically asks to send him not an obscure Church Slavonic Bible, but a French written in a language that he understands.

The Society is dedicated to the translation and publication of the Bible. Over the ten years of its existence, it has published over 876,000 copies of biblical books in 29 languages; of them in 12 languages \u200b\u200b- for the first time. For the beginning of the 19th century, this is a huge circulation. This was possible only thanks to the attention and personal support of Emperor Alexander I. The Russian language was not left without attention.

On February 28, 1816, Prince A.N. Golitsyn reported to the Holy Synod the will of Alexander I: “His Imperial Majesty ... sees with sorrow that many of the Russians, by the nature of the upbringing they received, were removed from the knowledge of the ancient Slovenian dialect, not without extreme difficulty they can use the sacred books published for them in this only dialect , so some in this case resort to the aid of foreign translations, but most of them cannot even have this ... His Imperial Majesty finds ... so that for the Russian people, under the supervision of clergy, the New Testament would be transposed from ancient Slavic into a new Russian dialect ".

Along the way, however, the plans of the Russian Bible Society became more ambitious: it was already about translating not only the New Testament, but the entire Bible, and not from the "ancient Slavic", but from the originals - Greek and Hebrew.

The main inspirer, organizer, and to a large extent the performer of the translation of the Bible into Russian was the rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Archimandrite Filaret (Drozdov), in the future Metropolitan of Moscow, canonized by the Orthodox Church. He developed the rules for translators and became, in fact, the chief editor of all translations performed, the last resort in their preparation for publication.

In 1819, the Four Gospels were published. In 1821 - the complete New Testament. In 1822 - the Psalter. One of the first Hebraists in Russia, Archpriest Gerasim Pavsky, was responsible for the translation of the Old Testament. In 1824, the first edition of the Pentateuch was prepared and printed, but it did not go on sale. It was decided to add the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth to the Pentateuch and publish them together in the form of the so-called Eight Books.

“By an unusually happy coincidence of circumstances, the Slovenian language has the advantage over Russian, over Latin, Greek, and over all possible languages \u200b\u200bthat have an alphabet, that there is not a single harmful book on it,” wrote Ivan Kireevsky, one of the most prominent representatives of Slavophilism. Of course, any Slavic scholar will say that this statement is not true: in ancient Russian literature we find many "renounced books" rejected by the Church, various "magicians" and "charmers", books with openly heretical content. But the opinion about the special - exclusive, almost divine nature of the Church Slavonic language - was expressed in our country again and again. It is repeated in our days.

In order to give this opinion an ecclesiastical assessment, it is necessary to recall, in particular, the history of the translation of the Bible into the Slavic language. We know that attempts to declare some languages \u200b\u200b"sacred" and all others "profane" have been repeatedly made. Saints Cyril and Methodius, the founders of Slavic writing, had to struggle with the so-called “trilingual heresy,” whose apologists believed that only three languages \u200b\u200bare permissible in Christian worship and literature: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. It was by the feat of the Thessalonian brothers that the "trilingual heresy" was overcome.

The ministry of the New Testament, as the Apostle Paul writes, is the ministry “not of the letter, but of the spirit, because the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3. 6). From the very beginning of Christian history, the Church's attention was drawn to the message, to preaching, to the mission, and not to a fixed text in a specific "sacred" language. This is radically different, for example, from the attitude towards the sacred text in rabbinic Judaism or in Islam. For rabbinic Judaism, the Bible is fundamentally untranslatable, and translation or transposition can only bring one closer to understanding the only true text, which is the Jewish Masoretic text for a believing Jew. Likewise, for Islam, the Qur'an is fundamentally untranslatable, and a Muslim who wants to know the Qur'an must learn Arabic. But such an attitude towards the sacred text is completely alien to the Christian tradition. Suffice it to say that the Gospels that brought the words of the Savior to us were not written in the language in which the Savior spoke (Aramaic or Hebrew). The Gospels - the main source of our knowledge about the Savior's preaching - contain His speeches not in the original, but in translation into Greek. We can say that the very life of the Christian Church began with translation.

It is very important for us that the Orthodox Church has never canonized any one text or translation, any one manuscript or one edition of Holy Scripture. There is no single generally accepted text of the Bible in the Orthodox tradition. There are discrepancies between Scripture quotes from the Fathers; between the Bible accepted in the Greek Church and the Church Slavonic Bible; between Church Slavonic Bible texts and the Russian Synodal Translation recommended for home reading. These discrepancies should not bother us, because behind different texts in different languages, in different translations there is a single Good News.

The question of the canonization of the Church Slavonic Bible as a text "self-authenticated, like the Latin Vulgate" was raised in the 19th century. Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Count N.A.Protasov (1836-1855). However, as St. Philaret of Moscow writes, “The Holy Synod for the work of correcting the Slavic Bible did not proclaim the Slavic text exclusively independent and thus far-sightedly blocked the way for those difficulties and confusion that in this case would have been the same or even greater than those that occurred in the Roman Church. from the proclamation of an independent text of the Vulgate ”.

After the abolition of the persecution of the Church, since the 1990s, the Bible in the Synodal translation again becomes one of the most widely published and distributed books in Russia. Starting from the middle of the twentieth century, in almost all Orthodox publications, biblical quotations began to be cited according to the text of the Synodal Translation (previously, exclusively according to the Slavic text of the Elizabethan Bible). The Synodal translation formed the basis for a number of Bible translations into the languages \u200b\u200bof the peoples of the Russian Federation (such as, for example, Kryashen or Chuvash).

3. Paying tribute and gratitude to the creators of the Synodal Translation, we cannot but take into account the constructive criticism directed at it.

There are numerous editorial flaws in the Synodal Translation. Often the same proper name in different books (and sometimes within the same book) is transmitted in the Synodal translation in different ways, and on the contrary, sometimes different Hebrew names coincide in the Russian transcription. For example, one and the same Israeli city of Hatzor is called now Hazor, then Hazor, then Esora, then Nazor. Often, proper nouns are translated as if they were common nouns or even verbs, and in some cases, common nouns are transcribed as proper nouns. An inaccuracy is noted in the transfer of realities, everyday and social characteristics of the ancient world, unknown or misunderstood by the science of the 19th century.

Most often, when discussing the shortcomings of the Synodal translation, they point to its textological and stylistic eclecticism. On this point, critics of the Synodal translation "from the left" and "from the right" converge. The textual basis of the Synodal Translation is not Greek, but not entirely Jewish either. The language is not Slavic, but not quite Russian either.

The chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod in 1880-1905, Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, believed that the Synodal translation should be close to the Slavic text.

On the contrary, Ivan Evseevich Yevseev, Chairman of the Russian Biblical Commission, in his report "The Council and the Bible", which he presented to the All-Russian Church Council of 1917, criticized the Synodal Translation for being excessively archaic and inconsistent with the norms of the literary language: “... The Russian Synodal Translation of the Bible ... is completed, true , recently - only in 1875, but it completely reflected all the features of not a beloved brainchild, but a stepson of the spiritual department, and he urgently requires a revision or, even better, a complete replacement ... the Greek text LXX, then the Latin text - in a word, in this translation everything is done to deprive it of its character of integrity, homogeneity. True, these properties are invisible to the average pious reader. Much more essential is his literary backwardness. The language of this translation is heavy, outdated, artificially close to Slavic, lagged behind the general literary language for a whole century ... it is a completely unacceptable language in the literature of the pre-Pushkin era, not brightened up, moreover, by a flight of inspiration, or by the artistry of the text ... "

The tragedy that befell Russia after 1917 for a long time pushed aside many of the issues discussed at the Council, including issues related to the translation of the Bible. In a situation where the very existence of Christianity in Russia was threatened, there was no time to improve the existing biblical translations. For a long seventy years, the Bible was among the prohibited books: it was not published, was not republished, was not sold in bookstores, and even in churches it was almost impossible to get it. To deprive people of access to the main book of humanity is only one of the crimes of the godless regime. But this crime clearly characterizes the essence of the ideology that was implanted by force.

4. Today times have changed, and the Bible in the Synodal translation is freely sold, including in secular bookstores. The books of the Holy Scriptures are also distributed free of charge, enjoying constant demand. For example, after two years ago the St. Gregory the Theologian Charitable Foundation, in cooperation with the Moscow Patriarchate Publishing House, initiated a program of free distribution of the book "New Testament and Psalms", more than 750 thousand copies were distributed. Moreover, the distribution was addressed - the book was received only by those who really wanted it, and not by random passers-by on the street.

New translations of individual books of the Bible have also appeared. These translations are of very different quality. So, for example, in the early 1990s, a translation of the epistles of the Apostle Paul, made by V.N. Kuznetsova. Here are just a few quotes: “Oh, you would have tolerated me, even if I’m a little stupid! Well, be patient, please ... I believe that I am in no way inferior to these very super-apostles. Maybe I am not a master of speaking, but as far as knowledge is concerned, this is another matter ... I repeat once again: do not take me for a fool! And if you do, then let me be a fool a little more and brag a little! What I am about to say is certainly not from the Lord. In this boasting venture, I will speak like a fool ... Let anyone pretend to be anything - I still speak like a fool ... ”(2 Cor. 11: 1-22). “I'm completely mad! You brought me to this! You should praise me! Let it be so, you say, yes, I have not burdened you, but I am a dodger and by cunning I got my hands on you. Maybe I was able to profit through someone from those whom I sent to you? " (2 Cor. 12: 11-18). “Food for the belly and the belly for food ... And you want to turn a part of the body of Christ into the body of a prostitute? God forbid!" (1 Cor. 6: 13-16).

I will share, again, my personal opinion. It seems to me that today one should not aim at a complete new translation of the Bible. But an edited edition of the Synodal translation could be prepared, in which the most obvious inaccuracies (like the mention of Diopetus in the book of Acts) would be corrected. It is clear that in order to prepare such a version of the Synodal Translation, a group of competent, highly qualified specialists in the field of biblical studies is needed. It is also obvious that the new edition of the translation must be approved by the church authorities.

I hope that the celebration of the 140th anniversary of the Synodal Translation will be a reason to think about its improvement.

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¹Except for small, low-circulation publications of the Moscow Patriarchate, available only to a narrow circle of church workers. The first such edition appeared in 1956.

Original post: http://mospat.ru/ru/2016/10/04/news136578/