The Bible is the most widely used book on earth, translated into 2,500 languages. What language was it written in? How did people get the opportunity to read it in their own language?
Instructions
Step 1
The Bible is considered the greatest book of all time for its antiquity, value as a literary masterpiece, and unsurpassed importance to all mankind. To date, the Bible has been translated into more than 2,500 languages and has more than 5 billion editions, making it the most popular book in modern society. At the same time, the current editions of Holy Scripture are later translations from the original languages in which it was created.
Step 2
The Bible began to be written 3,500 years ago. Its main part (Old Testament) was written in Hebrew. The only exceptions are a few separate parts of it, created in the Aramaic dialect. This circumstance was caused by the long stay of the ancient Jews in Babylonian captivity (6th century BC), where their culture was influenced by the local language.
Step 3
The conquests of Alexander the Great became the reason for the penetration of Greek culture into the Middle East. Under the powerful influence of Hellenism, hundreds of thousands of Jews, who were born outside their homeland of Israel, gradually forgot their native language, adopting Greek (Koine). In order to prevent compatriots from moving away from the original faith, Jewish teachers set out to translate the Old Testament into Greek. So, by the 2nd century BC. the first Greek-language translation of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, appeared. Later, this translation was actively used by Christian preachers who carried the word about Christ to all corners of the Roman Empire.
Step 4
Christianity that arose in the 1st century became the basis for the appearance of the second part of the Bible - the New Testament. Given the presence of the main international language - Greek - all of his books were also written in this language, Koine. However, historians have reason to believe that the very first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, was originally written in Hebrew. The availability of Greek-language translations of the Old and New Testaments provided a unique opportunity for a huge number of people living in different parts of the Roman Empire to get the opportunity to read the complete Bible.
Step 5
Subsequently, natural cultural and historical laws revealed the next need to translate the Bible into other languages. The Greek language gradually became obsolete, giving way to Latin. New translations began to appear, of which the Vulgate translation (from Latin - "publicly available") became the most famous. Its author was the theologian Jerome, who presented his work around 405 A. D. The revised version of the Vulgate in 1592 became the official translation of the Roman Catholic Church.
Step 6
The development of society and the formation of new states led to the gradual appearance of more and more translations of the Bible into other languages. The era of navigation, which made it possible to discover previously unknown countries, made it possible for the development of the missionary movement. This, in turn, required new efforts to translate the Holy Scriptures into the languages spoken by the inhabitants of distant territories. A special impetus in this direction was the development of printing. The first printed Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, was published in 1456. Since then, copies of the Holy Scriptures translated into various languages of the peoples of the world began to appear with increasing progression. At the moment, the Bible is fully or partially available for reading by 90% of the world's population.
