Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.1990, Page 121

Ný viðhorf við biblíuþýðingar
valið orðaforða samkvæmt því hlýtur að krefjast samstarfs málfræðinga,
guðfræðinga, félagsmannfræðinga og bókmenntafræðinga.
Eins og nefnt hefur verið hér að framan hafa 4 stofnanir Háskóla
íslands, Guðfræðistofnun, íslensk málstöð, Málvísindastofnun og
Orðabók Háskólans sameinast í að vinna orðstöðulykil að Biblíunni 1981.
Fyrsti afrakstur þessa samstarfs er nú að sjá dagsins ljós, en það er
prentaður orðstöðulykill að Biblíunni 1981. Vonandi verður framhald á
þessu samstarfi.
Summary
1. The translation of the Bible into Icelandic has been discussed by
specialists in the Icelandic language no less than by theologians. The New
Testament is the first book which is known to have been printed in
Icelandic (1540), and the value of that translation for the Icelandic
language is undisputed. A tradition of Bible translation, unbroken in its
main outlines, extended from the 16th century all the way down to the
1827 translation of the New Testament and the 1841 edition of the Bible.
The translation of 1912 (1908) represented something of a retum to this
earlier tradition and the 1981 revision and translation of the Bible is
unambiguously faithful to it. If one is to judge by the overall reception of
this 1981 edition, and by a survey of its readers which has recently been
carried out, it has failed to stimulate reading of the Bible among the
Icelanders. (This situation is similar to that in Sweden, where a new
translation of the New Testament also appeared in 1981.) A yet newer
Icelandic translation of the Bible is planned for the year 2000, which will
be the millenary of the adoption of the Christian faith by the Icelanders.
It is important to raise the question what this new translation should be
like.
2. Rather few volumes of helps for the Bible reader have been
published in Iceland. Although it is desirable to produce Bible translations
which can be read without commentaries, there is a need for handbooks
and other helps which utilize the results of recent Bible research. New
perspectives in Bible studies, which emphasize the reception of the text by
its readers and the reading process as a whole (instead of limiting
themselves, in the traditional manner, to the origins and structure of the
text) should help in producing more adequate helps for Bible readers. A
certain lack of communication has obtained among theologians between
those who focus upon the text itself and its morphological and stmctural
features, and those who emphasize the application of the text to
contemporary life. This lack of communication is partly due to the
attitude of those who emphasize syntagmatic over paradigmatic analysis.
Their approach consists in trying to situate the meanings of words within
the functioning system of a language rather than in the attempt to fix their
meaning by considering other words available to the author of a given
sentence but rejected by him or her in favour of the word that stands in
the text.
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