Folia Theologica 9. (1998)

György Benyik: Hungarian Bible Translation

HUNGARIAN BIBLE TRANSLATIONS

229

MIKLÓS MISZTÓTFALUSI KIS (1650-1702)63 was an internationally famous printer, linguist and publisher. He started his studies at Nagybánya. At Nagyenyed College he started a life-long friendship with FERENC PÁPAI PÁRIZ. He took up teaching at Fogaras, and then was commissioned by Transylvanian Princes to supervise the publication of the new Hungarian Bible translation. He learnt letter-cutting in BLAEU’s printing-house and this establishment became popular with foreign customers. From the money earned he published the Bible in ’’infant form” in 1685 and in 1687 he published the Psalms and the New Testament. He corrected not only the spelling but in many cases the meaning, as a result of which he was later charged as a follower of JOHANNES COCCEIUS’64 65 „federational theology”. In his defence he wrote in his Apology65 that he had wanted to find Hungarian equivalents for those expressions strongly influenced by the Latin version, in an en- davour to make a more correct translation according to the concordancy. In cases where he had inserted words into the text for clearer meaning, but these words had not been in original, he had printed them in italics so as to make the changes easy to distinguish. He concluded his book with a list of errata. These principles of translation he also applied in his other publications, which made them spread much more quickly than if they were in a grammar book.

ANDRÁS TORKOS (7-1737), a Lutheran preacher in Győr. He joined the pietist movement at Wittenberg and wrote several works in Hungarian and Latin along with revising the Károli Bible and translating the New Testament himself.66

63 TOLDY, Ferenc. Régi magyar nyelvészek. Budapest, 1866. Gyulay, Farkas, (ed). Tótfalusi Siralmas panasza. Kolozsvár, 1892. Gyulai, Farkas, (ed). Mentség. Kolozsvár, 1902. TORD A Y, Zádor. (ed). Tótfalusi Kis Milklós válogatott művei. Bukarest, 1954. DÉZSI, Lajos. Magyar író és könyvnyomtató a XVII. században. Budapest, 1899. KLANICZAY, Tibor. Reneszánsz és barokk. Budapest, 1961.

64 Cocceius, Johannes (1603-1669).German Calvinist theologian, professor of the University of Leydan, who had several Hungarian students and followers, among them János Apáczai Csere. His main work is the Lexicon et commentarius sermonis Hebrici et Chaldici. Amsterdam, 1669. see ZOVÁNYI, Jenő. A coccejanizmus története. Budapest, 1890.

65 Apoligia Bibliorum ANnos 1683 AMsterlodami. Kolozsvár, 1607.

66 A mi Urunk Jézus Krisztusnak Ujtestamentuma. (translated from Greek) Wittenberg, 1736.; Pozsony, 1803. but the New Testament most likely apeared in Leipzig 1717.