The Bible is the most widely spread book on earth, translated into 2, 500 languages of the world. And in what language was it written? How did people get the opportunity to read it in their own language?
Instruction manual
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The Bible is considered the greatest book of all time on the basis of its antiquity, significance as a literary masterpiece, and of unrivaled importance to all of humanity. To date, the Bible has been translated into more than 2, 500 languages, and the number of its publications has exceeded 5 billion copies, making it the most popular book in modern society. However, current editions of Scripture are later translations from the original languages in which it was created.
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The Bible began to be written 3, 500 years ago. Its main part (Old Testament) was written in Hebrew. The exception is only a few of its separate parts created in the Aramaic dialect. This circumstance was caused by the long stay of the ancient Jews in the Babylonian captivity (6th century BC), where the local language influenced their culture.
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The conquests of Alexander of Macedon became the cause of the penetration of Greek culture into the Middle East. Under the powerful influence of Hellenism, hundreds of thousands of Jews born outside their homeland of Israel gradually forgot their native language, adopting Greek (koyne). In order to prevent compatriots from moving away from the original faith, Jewish teachers set the goal of translating the Old Testament into Greek. So, by the 2nd century BC the first Greek-language translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, appeared. Later, this translation was actively used by Christian preachers who carried the word about Christ to all corners of the Roman Empire.
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The emergence of Christianity in the 1st century became the basis for the appearance of the second part of the Bible - the New Testament. Given the presence of the main international language - Greek - all of his books were also written in this language, koyne. However, historians have reason to believe that the very first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, was originally written in Hebrew. The presence of Greek-language translations of the Old and New Testaments provided a unique opportunity for a huge number of people living in different parts of the Roman Empire to get the opportunity to read the complete Bible.
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Subsequently, the natural cultural-historical laws revealed another need for translating the Bible into other languages. Greek gradually became obsolete, giving way to Latin. New translations began to appear, of which the Vulgate translation (from Latin - "publicly available") became most famous. Its author was the theologian Jerome, who presented his work to the world around 405 A.D. A revised version of the Vulgate in 1592 became the official translation of the Roman Catholic Church.
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The development of society and the formation of new states led to the gradual appearance of ever new translations of the Bible into other languages. The era of navigation, which allowed discovering previously unknown countries, made it possible to develop a missionary movement. This, in turn, required new efforts to translate the Holy Scriptures into those languages spoken by residents of distant territories. A special impetus in this direction was the development of typography. The first printed Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, was published in 1456. Since then, copies of the Holy Scriptures, translated into different languages of the peoples of the world, began to appear with increasing progression. Currently, the Bible is fully or partially readable by 90% of the world's population.
