In The Beginning & The Keys of Egypt

honestpuck writes "Linguistics has long been an interest of mine, and one of my fields of study, and I've recently read two good books that combine linguistics with other topics. The Keys of Egypt is the tale of history's most famous decoding task, the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics and In The Beginning is the story of the King James Bible, the history, theology, politics, linguistics and technology that surrounded Bible translation and printing in Renaissance Europe and England." Read on for his combination review of two books that might inspire your curiosity, no matter how far from the usual Slashdot fare.

In The Beginning & The Keys of Egypt
author	Alister E. McGrath & Lesley Adkins & Roy Adkins
pages	352 & 368
publisher	Anchor & Perennial
rating	7
reviewer	Tony Williams
ISBN	0385722168, 0060953497
summary	A good book on the history of the King James Bible & A decent read on the translation of hieroglyphics

Hieroglyphs

The Keys Of Egypt was written by husband-and-wife archaeological team Lesley and Roy Adkins. It is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code," and starts with a short chapter that introduces the eventual winner of that race, the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, and mentions his most serious rival, the Englishman Thomas Young.

The book goes on to examine Napoleon's expedition to Egypt which both brought the Rosetta Stone to light and started a period of French and European fascination with ancient Egypt. These were the two catalysts for the riddle's eventual solution.

This is a well-written book that looks at the struggle and race for translation and the political and academic machinations (often both combined) that surrounded Champollion. It is essentially a biography of Champollion, who grew up and worked amid the turmoil of the Napoleonic era. The story is a compelling one and the authors have done well to make it at times fascinating.

As a genre I find that 'scientific biographies' tend to be a little overblown and flowery, the writing not quite precise -- and Keys suffers from these shortcomings. I also felt that while the book is subtitled "The Race to Crack the Hieroglyph Code" it really only focuses on Champollion, while he is the eventual winner a little more effort in examining the others involved in the effort would have improved the book.

The Bible

It can be argued that the King James Bible has had as large an effect on our language today as the work of Shakespeare. 'In The Beginning' has at its core the story of biblical translation, a topic you may think anything but fascinating. McGrath has done a good job in making this a compelling book.

He starts, as one may expect, with the story of Gutenberg and his first printed bibles. Before arriving at the King James he covers Martin Luther, the rise of Protestantism in Europe, Henry the Eighth, more than one hanging, and several other bible translations and translators. Along the way he manages to dispel a few myths I had held about biblical translation and the King James in particular. I always thought that it was the King James version that introduced the idea of the main body in roman type and words inserted to clarify meaning in italics, but it was actually an earlier English translation known as the Geneva Bible that first implemented this idea. After explaining the technology, theology, politics and linguistics nuances that led King James to permit (but not fund) a new translation, McGrath tells us how the translation was accomplished organizationally before examining some of the nuances of the translation itself. Some of the language in the King James was archaic even when it was published; translators had been instructed to lift from previous translations all the way back to the partial translation of William Tynsdale published 90 years earlier, and this at a time when the English language was going through the huge changes of the Elizabethan era. McGrath examines this aspect, pointing out such things as changes in verb endings and personal pronouns.

I found the book patchy. McGrath does a much better job covering the story up until the translation. It is harder to get a feel for how the translation was accomplished and how the various teams worked, and when he comes to examine some of the nuances of the translation, the text makes much harder going. If this had not been a part of the topic that interested me a great deal, I may have lost interest.

Conclusion

Both books may have their flaws but both are well worth the read. It is important to realise the history of science and language that have brought us to our current place and both these volumes do a good job of illuminating the past efforts of men who worked under entirely different pressures than we find today.

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You can purchase both In The Beginning and The Keys of Egypt from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Re:No mention of Tyndale?

[pseudochaotic]

He might have misspelled it in the review, but it's still there.

translators had been instructed to lift from previous translations all the way back to the partial translation of William Tynsdale published 90 years earlier

God's Secretaries

[marklandm]

I found the following book to be very interesting as it describs many of the people involved in the King James Version of the Bible in detail.

_God's Secretaries : The Making of the King James Bible_

by Adam Nicolson

Unfortunately I haven't read the book the poster discusses so I cannot make a comparison.

The History of the Bible

[dodell]

Well, I personally think its unfair to start the history of the bible at the time of the printing press. A Grand Funk Electric song captures this best - "You've got the English translation of the Roman translation of the Greek translation of the pure Babylonian". Indeed, the King James translation of the Bible is one of many English translations of the Bible. Starting one's Bible history from ca. 1450 (when the Bible first began being pressed) simply does not seem fair to me.

The first translations were made ca. 200 BC, and was the "Septuagint" - from Hebrew to Greek translation (the Old Testament). It was not until ca. 400 AD that the Hebrew version of the Old Testament was translated into Latin; the New Testament was translated from Greek to Latin -- the Old Testament was re-translated. The manuscripts on which these translations were based are no longer present in the whole.

In my opinion, there is a rich history to be told in the differences between translations of the Bible from original to later versions. Hell, one could back into European translations of the Bible and teach an entire story based upon the discrepancies of copies of the hand-written versions.

There's a rich history to the translation of the Bible. Google for it [google.com].

Lesley and Roy Adkins in Utah?

[Anonymous Coward]

While these books may seem well researched and informative, it is important to note their main [ucdavis.edu] financial contributer while doing their research was the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints [lds.org](Mormons [mormon.org]). In fact, the publishers [harpercollins.com] of these two books was founded in New York, but moved it's headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, and is majority owned by the Mormons.

Why does all that matter? Conflict of interest. Remember, the mormons are the ones that claim their founder, Joseph Smith [lds.org], translated a previously "hidden" "message from God" into english from ... Egyptian heiroglyphics. And while his translation has been completely debunked [bibleman.net], millions of Mormons continue to believe. And the Mormon church wants nothing more than to trick more people. So they Have hired Lesley and Roy Adkins to slowly add credibility to their story of "enlightenment from God through their prophet".

This is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world, and they are trying to legitimize their claims. In fact, Mormons have already invaded much of the U.S. political system [google.com] and once in power, they will censor all other belief systems and, using their overseas propoganda army [pbs.org] they will attempt to take over the world.

If you buy into these books, you are buying in to the Mormon conspiracy.

This public service announcement brought to you by ICBLF

Re:Just a question about translations...

[JDBrechtel]

I believe the NIV (New International Version) of the bible was translated recently (1965) and I'm sure would have only used the oldest sources.

Here's some more info

http://www.gospelcom.net/ibs/niv/background.php

Re:Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you've never heard, or heard but didn't understand, the phrase "God is dead" [age-of-the-sage.org]?

Qu'ran mistranslation

[scrotch]

On a related note, people interested in these books may be interested in this story [msnbc.com] (via metafilter) about how the Qu'ran as it's known now may be a mistranslation of the original.

Regarding the Book on Hieroglyphics

[dodell]

There's also a rich history to the development of the Egyptian writing style of hieroglyphics throughout the entirety of the Egyptian era. Indeed, the Rosetta Stone, the key to the translation of the hieroglyphics was written using no less than three different scripts of hieroglyphics. More information about the Rosetta Stone is available here [ancientegypt.co.uk].

Wrong

[jbellis]

KJV is not even a little 'responsible for the inversion of "thee/thou/thy."' It was using these in the familiar sense, which was the sense used in the greek original of the NT, and thus was REINFORCING the original connotation of these words rather than inverting it...

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m971211c.htm l

http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-mo st -recent/msg10071.html

http://www.bartleby.com/61/66/Y0026600.html

http://www.kencollins.com/why-05.htm

Hebraic Roots Version Complete Bible

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nazarene.net/products.htm

This page has other interesting stuff at well.
Btw, in this bible the new Testament is translated from Aramaic and not from Greek(as in most other bibles)!

Re:Just a question about translations...

[young-earth]

The question is what is the oldest manuscript. For the Greek (NT) portion, the Roman Catholic Church has two rather badly corrupted manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) which were basically unused for 1500 years or so. Unused because they were so corrupt. An unused manuscript gets to be an old manuscript; valid ones get used and copied, so the request for the oldest is actually a bit off the mark.

It is widely known that the best Greek text is the "Textus Receptus"; the altered text or "Westcott and Hort" or "Nestle-Aland" text is the one based on the corrupted manuscripts.

Unfortunately, in the 20th and 21st centuries the only new translations that have been done were based on the Westcott and Hort manuscripts. The last translation done from a good manuscript is the KJV.

The Hebrew text that's been proven totally accurate, by comparison with the Dead Sea Scrolls, is the Masoretic text. And guess what, that's in the KJV. I don't think any modern translations have used that, but I'm not certain on that point.

Note the reason for this: you can't copyright something unless it's sufficiently DIFFERENT from something that's in the public domain. The KJV was never copyrighted; all the new translations are done for-profit and are copyrighted (with one exception, the World English Bible). So of course the new translations are different, they wouldn't be worth anything (profit-wise) if they weren't. But there's no indication the KJV is wrong.

In point of fact, the KJV was translated when the English language was at its zenith (it was contemporary with Shakespeare).

Re:Just a question about translations...

[schmidt349]

Almost all major translation efforts carried out since the release of the Revised Standard Version have used as their reference texts the Nestle-Aland and UBS revisions of the Greek New Testament, which are critical texts based on the oldest available sources for the NT. There is no doubt that translations effected today are based on much better-attested texts than what was available to the creators of the King James Version, since certain discoveries had simply not been made by that point. In fact, one of the "baseline" texts for the NA/UBS editions is Codex Sinaiticus, a fourth-century well-preserved Greek New Testament manuscript that was only rediscovered in the nineteenth century. Hic parvus porcus ad forum veni...

Re:Just a question about translations...

[schmidt349]

"It is widely known that the best Greek text is the "Textus Receptus"; the altered text or "Westcott and Hort" or "Nestle-Aland" text is the one based on the corrupted manuscripts." This is idiotic, and I'll explain why: The Textus Receptus was created in 1518 by Desiderius Erasmus, a very wise scholar of many ancient languages. Unfortunately, dear old Erasmus had access to only a handful of Byzantine-tradition manuscripts for his Textus Receptus, so it absolutely positively cannot be a more reliable source than the emended texts available today. Incidentally, his only copy of the book of Revelations was missing the last few pages! His solution: he retranslated the Vulgate's Latin text of the pages into Greek, so his last few chapters of Revelation were a translation of a translation... think about a video that goes through multiple standards conversions and you get the impression of what the TR's last few pages of Revelations look like. Ah, the extents to which people will go to discredit Alexandrine-tradition manuscripts anymore... (of course, the Gospel of John text in Sinaiticus is Byzantine, but I suppose that spells the difference between "badly corrupted" and "totally corrupted" to the otherwise uneducated.

Re:Just a question about translations...

[Teach]

...the more popular current versions that have passed through multiple interpretations through multiple cultural lenses.

The New International Version dates from 1978, and many consider it to be very good. The updated New American Standard was originally done in 1971, but was updated as recently as 1995. Both are "from scratch" translations from the most reliable texts currently available, so neither has passed through "multiple cultural lenses". And I'd say the NIV is the most popular current translation (for Protestants, anyway), so your assertion is incorrect.

You can find information on other modern translations at Zondervan's site [zondervanbibles.com].

Interpretation of any centuries-old work is difficult, and involves two phases. First is exegesis, the careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning. That is, what was the original writer attempting to say to the original audience? This is where better understanding of the source language and the culture at the time of writing is most helpful.

The second phase is hermeneutics, the contemptorary relevance of ancient texts. That is, given the original, intended meaning of this passage, what does it mean to me, today?

An excellent book discussing proper exegesis and hermeneutics, looking book-by-book at each literary type in the Bible is How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth [barnesandnoble.com], by Stuart and Fee. I highly recommend it for those interested in the subject.

Re:Just a question about translations...

[rjamestaylor]

• Has anyone in the last couple of decades attempted a translation from the oldest possible sources for the Bible's contents?

That's exactly where the American Standard Version (and its crippled counterpart the Revised Standard Version), Darby's New Translation, the New Internation Version (more of "thought translation" than "word by word") and other modern translations have come from. The latest work on reconstituting the oldest and closest-to-the-original (sometimes the oldest available isn't the most authentic...think about it; sometimes a revision is better preserved than a revered and faithfully copied original) bibical texts is embodied in the United Bible Society's Nestle-Aland Greek Text of the New Testament.

For a compendium of many translations see The Bible Gateway [biblegateway.com].

A quick look on the Net for more info should you be interested lead me to this [bible-researcher.com] page, which APPEARS to be a fairly decent resource for more info on this topic. (*I haven't reviewed it thoroughly just briefly--but it rings objective*)

Bibles, Translations -- straight dope.

[ansak]

What the Christian world calls "the Bible" is a collection of documents written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek. Most modern translations follow

• the best available textual criticism (trying to reconstruct document 0 from the many fragments one finds -- and compare the statistics to the ones on numbers of copies of other documents available from the same time periods)
• cross-checked with
  • quotations from commentators (Old Church Fathers)
  • translations into other old known languages (including in the case of Hebrew: Aramaic, Greek, Syriac and Samaritan; in the case of Greek: Aramaic, Arabic, Armenian, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Old Latin etc. etc.)
• with the vocabulary used cross-checked with all available other usages of the same words in the same time-frame (Thankfully, the Greek-speaking world wrote a LOT of stuff!)

The point being that of all possible documents you could hold a copy of in your own language, a modern translation of the Bible is about as close to the closest possible meaning in your language of the meaning in language 0 of document 0 as you could possibly have of any text of similar origin and antiquity.

And all that without invoking a single phrase of mumbo jumbo...in saecula saeculorum Amen, Amen

Re:For fun

[Anonymous Coward]

There were 5 documented groups that were roaming about the area at the time preaching hippy like lifestyle and be nice to others and that sort of thing. Most of the Romans thought they were crackpots. Three of the groups were men only and were openly gay. One group had a place for women to have children and little other uses for them and the 5th was mixed. One of the gay groups also was pulling in medical techniques from Egypt. Remember that at that time, it would have been impossible to be a Jewish doctor because the rules about being "unlcean" as it related to the ill and bleeding. I expect that group had a major impact of the apostles considering they could heal things that were unhealable at the time (except in Egypt where they had doctors), much of the early concepts that are much different than the Jewish and Roman customs are from Egypt.