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Avondale alumnus helps modernise ancient Bible
04 March 2008
Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
An Avondale College alumnus has helped produce a modern English version of an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament.
Dr Bernard Taylor served as secretary of the Translation Committee and as one of the translators for A New English Translation of the Septuagint (edited by Albert Pietersma and Benjamin Wright, published by Oxford University Press). Taylor's translation of 61 chapters in the books of Samuel and Kings "occupied my spare time for more than seven years," so "it is difficult to keep perspective and step back from it all." Nevertheless, Taylor feels a sense of honour at having participated and of responsibility. "It took some time before I could read what I translated without the dread of finding some glaring mistake!" he says.
The Septuagint is the first translation of a major work (not just biblical or religious) from one language to another. The word "septuaginta" means "seventy" in Latin and derives from a tradition that 72 Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Greek in 72 days for the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Translation began about 250 BC in Alexandria.
The Septuagint served as the Bible of the Christian church in the New Testament, since almost no one could read Hebrew. A New English Translation of the Septuagint, produced under the auspices of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, of which Taylor is a member, is the first English translation since 1851.
Taylor graduated from Avondale's theology course in 1966. A master's degree in biblical languages (Andrews University, 1979) followed before Taylor enrolled as the first Seventh-day Adventist to study at Hebrew Union College, the home of Reform Judaism. Taylor graduated with a master's in philosophy (1988) and a PhD in Old Testament (1989). Harvard University published his dissertation in two volumes.
Taylor is a former editor of the "Septuagint and Cognate Studies" Series for the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and author of The Analytical Lexicon to the Septuagint, which analyses the form of every Greek word in the Septuagint. He has also branched out into the fields of biblical lexicography (the science of making dictionaries), serving on the steering committee for SBL, and into standards for digital encoding of biblical texts, chairing an SBL seminar in this field for three years. Taylor is now scholar in residence at Loma Linda University Seventh-day Adventist Church (California, USA).
"We textual critics, as we are known in the academic community, are passionate about ensuring that we have the most accurate biblical text possible, whatever the language, and that we know what the words used meant at the time," says Taylor. "Modern versions of the biblical texts have been very carefully studied. I sometimes picture myself taking a Greek New Testament to heaven with me and sharing it with the Apostle Paul, or John the Beloved, and having the assurance that the text has indeed been well preserved."
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