Bible Society of South Africa

Bible Translations

Bible Translations in Antiquity

Bible translations are not a recent phenomenon. The books of the Bible were translated in antiquity as well.

Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament

For his translation of the New Testament, Luther used the edition of the Greek source text by Erasmus.

Luther’s Translation

The work of the reformer Martin Luther was extremely influential in the development of Bible translations.

Peshitta

The Peshitta (“the simple version”) is the Syriac translation of the Bible. It includes both the books of the Old Testament (translated from Hebrew) and the books of the New Testament (translated from Greek). The Syriac translation usually stays close to the Hebrew and Greek source text. The Peshitta was created around the fourth century AD.

Septuagint

The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. It literally means “seventy”. It is the oldest translation of the Old Testament.

Targumim

Targumim (plural of Targum) are Aramaic translations of the Hebrew books of the Old Testament.

The Bible in Afrikaans

Portions of the Bible were translated into Afrikaans for the first time by CP Hoogenhout, A Pannevis and SJ du Toit since 1878. The first complete Bible was, however, only published in 1933. A revised version was published in 1953. Today, the translation is known as the 1933/1953 translation and is still a very popular, traditional translation, translated from the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic source texts.

The Bible in English

The King James Version (KJV), a formal translation where each word of the source text was translated into the target language, was first published in 1611. This translation is traditionally loved and accepted by all Christians. Despite the many modern translations that are available, the KJV is still read by a large number of people throughout the world.

The Bible in isiNdebele

IsiNdebele 2012

The Bible in isiXhosa

IsiXhosa 1975 and 1996

The Bible in isiZulu

IsiZulu 1893, 1959 and 2020

The Bible in Sepedi

Sepedi 1951 and 2000

The Bible in Sesotho

Sesotho 1909 and 1989

The Bible in Setswana

Setswana 1908 and 1970

The Bible in Siswati

Siswati 1996

The Bible in Tshivenda

Tshivenda 1936 and 1998

The Bible in Xitsonga

Xitsonga 1929 and 1989

Theodotion, Aquila and Symmachus

After the Septuagint, various other Greek translations of the books of the Old Testament followed. These new translations tried to bring the Greek text closer to the Hebrew text.

Vetus Latina

The oldest Latin translations of books of the New Testament are referred to as the Vetus Latina. They are older than the Vulgate, the fourth century translation by Jerome. But the Vulgate became much more important.

Vulgate

The Church Father, Jerome, composed a Latin translation of the whole Bible in the fourth century AD.
Jerome translated the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew and the books of the New Testament from Greek. He also translated a number of books (from Greek) which later became known as “Deuterocanonical”.
The Vulgate became the most authoritative text of the Bible for the Western Church until the Reformation.

Bible Society of South Africav.4.25.2
Find us on