New Testament Revisions

New Testament Revision

The Word of God does not change, but versions of the Bible must be updated from time to time. William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in 1526. This was the first translation in English that was wholly based on the Greek text.  Eight years later, in 1534, he made the first revision. Then a year later, he made a second revision.  Tyndale was executed in 1536 because he dared to translate Scriptures into English. At the time, doing so was a punishable offense.  Huntington and Marsh (2011) report that he made 4,000 changes.  I’m also embarking on the revision of the Anyi New Testament eight years after it was published in 2017.  I have taken a yearlong sabbatical for this purpose.  I anticipate making some 6,000 changes.   Does it mean that the first version was not correct?  Not at all! However, I see that improvements are needed in punctuations, explanatory footnotes, and close alignment with the Greek.

Punctuations

Every language has its own punctuation rules that reflect how people talk naturally.  Unfortunately, I “discovered” the rules of Anyi punctuations relatively late, while the first edition of the New Testament was being printed.  By and large, I followed English and French punctuations.  Did you know that the Greek texts of the New Testament did not have any punctuations?  The punctuations that you see in your English Bibles follow English punctuation rules.  By punctuating the Anyi New Testament according to the patterns seen in English or French, I was imposing the melodies of these two languages on the Anyi New Testament.  And so, when it is read out loud, the cadence does not follow the natural Anyi melody. Anyi has words that linguists call “demarcative words.”  When they are used, there is a slight pause between the first thought group and the next.  Because I did not fully understand their role in Anyi discourse, I placed commas haphazardly, sometimes correctly, other times incorrectly. I am correcting that in the second edition. 

Footnotes 

Explanatory footnotes are placed strategically in the Anyi New Testament text to help the readers make sense of items that are culturally unknown to the Anyi.  In the first edition, I wrote only 11 footnotes for Matthew.  In this revised version, there are 35 notes.  For example, I added a footnote for the word “legion” in Matt 5:9 or in Matt 26:53. Did you know that a legion refers to 5,000 to 6,000 entities?  Additionally, I added a footnote for Matthew 1:25 which reads as follows, “but he [Joseph] did not have sexual relations with her until she [Mary] gave birth to a son.” The word that is translated in English as <until> is the Greek word <eos>.  I rendered it into Anyi as <dédéé>.  However, a Catholic priest has frowned upon my translation because, according to him, it undermines the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity.  However, in the ecumenical French version (TOB) authorized by the Vatican, it also translates the Greek word <eos>

by <jusqu’à>, which means <until> in French. I’ve now written a footnote on Matthew 1:25, explaining this alleged bias in my translation. 

Alignment with the Greek text 

I’m aligning the revised Anyi New Testament as closely as possible with the Greek text.  A case in point is the translation of the words “disciples” and “apostles.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke made sure to contrast between “disciples” and “apostles.” However, John never used the word “apostles” in his Gospel.  So, in the second edition, I’m paying close attention to the Greek text to see when it used <disciples> or <apostles> so that my Anyi text mirrors the Greek one as faithfully as possible. 

I am hoping the newer version will read more like the Anyi speak, that it will be more easier to understand because of the footnotes, and that it will be closer to the Greek Text