Hungarian Church Press, 1951 (3. évfolyam, 10. szám)
1951-06-01 / 10. szám
Bihle Council came into being as a brotherly fellowship of work that was made up of the Hungarian Evangelical churches and the group of the free.churches, The Bible Council assumed responsibility for the scholarly work of the Bible revision, for the publishing of the Table and aids to the study of the ^ihle and for the distribution and spreading of the ^jble. It is not an artificial person in terms of the public law, but a brotherly fellowship of work in which the Rcfojrod, •Lutheran, Baptist and Methodist Churches and other small denominations united in the Federation of the Free Churches, such as the Adventists, Churches of the Brethren etc* »are represented. While ail these denominations share the spiritual and moral responsibility for the cause of the Bible,the Reformed Church,through the Press .Department of the General Convent, assumed all public responsibility<. lot the Bible Council has the right to exercise control, through a commission, over the management of the Press Department, as far as the matters connected with the Bible are concerned. All decisions of the Bible Council are unanimous» This is an example of sincere ecumenical cooperation. The aim of the Old Testament Commission is to render as faithfully as possible the hebraia i veritas in a modern Hungarian language which incorporates all ^f¥n’F~irf the 'liest and still alive in the idiom of the old translation. The Massorotic Text is taken from the latest edition of the Biblia Hebratoa ed, kittel, The Commission trios to give a 11« torai translation of the MassorVfcTc text. With the exception of a few cases, even the vocalisation is faithfully respected. Where, owing to the obvious corruption or unintolJigibility of text- a precise trabslation cannot be responsibly made, the old rendering is preferred in order to preserve the continuity of moaning, yet in these cases, a footnote indicates the uncertainty of the translators0 The toilsome way of a faithful translation leads the translators between the danger of a meaningless literalness, on the one sjde, and of changing and thereby dissolving the Biblical concepts and symbolic expressions in modern idiom, on the other. The compass of this passage is given with the principle of concordance. Of course, this cannot bo maintained,in any language, blindly and mechanically, or even at tlic cost of faithfulness and intelligibility0 It is in this qualified sense, that the Commission is trying to abide by the principle of concordance„ The translation progressed from verse to verso in the sessions of the Commission which usually have taken a week each, month. In this manner, a tentative text was produced. This text was later, after several months - while the work op c-ther books was carried on, -taken up again by the Commission; it was read aloud, chiefly in order to mark the effect of the audible text, ~ an important consideration as far as the ecclesiastical and liturgical use is concerned. During this reading, difficult pi- .cos were again discussed and uneven renderings improved upon. Then copies of this text wore made for a third inspection, after which the text went to the presses. Yet further improvements were made even in the course of the first proof-reading which was again done together by the members of the commission* Yet the Commission is of the opinion, while working now on the Second Book of Samuel, that the books following, the Genesis vrill have on even better shape than the present instalment. At times, important problems are thoroughly discussed. Yet decisions are never reached by votes, - truth cannot be attained by ballot, - and even in case of a very difficult question, the members of the commission somehow arrive at a unanimous opinion,, It has uovur yet been the case of having to ask the decision of the joint Bible .Commission or of the Hungarian Bible Council, Consultations with the Commission on the hew Testament, with regard to the hew Testament revision, which has, in the Hungarian Church Presa *-9-
