www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Parallel Format for Translations of the Divine Liturgy

Has any effort been made to take the major translations in English and put them into a parallel format for comparison? (Even possibly an interlinear format with the original language and the New Translation?)

It might be a helpful way to make comparisons.

Any thoughts?

Gordo

Our priests could do that. Father?

CDL

I wouldn't know how to handle the technology, but it can certainly be done. There are several possibilities, depending on just how scholarly one wants to be.

We do face some difficult problems, though. First, we are dealing with two original languages: Greek and Church-Slavonic. Someone has to decide - somewhat arbitrarily - just what Greek text and what Church-Slavonic text to use, and he had better be prepared for plenty of disagreement on his choices!

As if that weren't enough, shall we have footnotes (or feetnotes) giving variant readings in the two original languages? Both Greek and Church-Slavonic offer us lots of them.

One would also want indications of Scriptural references, which some of us (including both Father David and myself) do as a matter of course anyway, and to the extent that it's possible, one wants indications to patristic references - the search for those is still in its infancy.

Now. A classic form of the interlinear translatioon involves two English translations: the first is literally inter-linear; it goes right under the original, line by line, and gives a word-by-word translation that nobody would even want to read aloud (as a joke, Stephen Leacock used to do dramatic/comic readings of Cicero). The other side of the page, so to speak, gives an intelligible English translation OR a translation which is felt to be of particular importance, often for extraneous reasons.

For an example of all this look at Alfred Marshall's R.S.V Interlinear Greek - English New Testament, kept in print by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I would be lost without it. But it is no small job.

By the way, to the best of my knowledge there is no Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint. Anyone interested in doing it?

Serge Keleher

Father Keleher commented: By the way, to the best of my knowledge there is no Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint. Anyone interested in doing it?

The translation done by Sir Launcelot Lee Brenton in 1851 for Bagster and Sons London was still available in a reasonably priced edition in the 1970s. It is out of copyright and the English is available on the Internet [http://www.ccel.org/bible/brenton/]. There are problems with the Greek text, especially in terms of Orthodox usage; I have heard complaints about the quality of the translation, and the Introductory comments are badly out of date. Still, for the purposes Fr. Keleher mentions, it is a very useful tool for those of us who never had the advantages of multi-lingual formation.

An impressive collection of resources, including the Greek LXX in WORD 97 format, is found at http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/.

There is a copy of Brenton right here on my shelf, and I often use it. But it is NOT an interlinear version. Please read my description of what an interlinear version is.

Serge Keleher

Father Keleher correctly specifies that Brenton does not include an English translation underneath each Greek word, and thus requires a little more knowledge of Greek than a true inter-linear version would. I stand by the suggestion that it can be a very useful tool, even for those who would benefit more from the additional information of an inter-linear translation.

As I said the other day: "There is a copy of Brenton right here on my shelf, and I often use it."

Fr. Serge