Bad Bible Translation

[forthright]

I’m looking for help identifying a pope from a story I heard several years ago. I heard the story from a Lighthouse Catholic Media CD, so I think the story is real, but it’s been so long that I only remember the general outline of the story…

Supposedly, a pope in the middle ages wanted to create a new translation of the Bible. The pope in question was supposedly very picky and wanted to do everything himself, against his advisors strong urgings. Pretty much everyone except the pope didn’t agree with his translation, but he wanted to make it the “official” version anyway. After he completed his translation, but before he could make it official, he died.

Anyone know who this was?

 

[forthright]

Never mind - was able to find the answer here:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=193678

 

[sirach2v4]

I think that the establishment, centuries later, of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, establishes that even the Pope defers to a college of scholars.

I find it odd that I’ve never heard of a “journal” of the PBC. I’m sure it’s something many of us would like to look over, to see what these people are worrying about now.

Most measured opinions are that Bible translations have to be brought uptodate based on the most recent scholarship and considering the needs of modern language.

I think an ordinary consideration is that the translations today have to avoid even the semblance of plagiarism, which leads to divergent, than convergent, translations.

A long time ago, I submitted a post with a comparison of a rather randomly selected verse, just to show the lengths the translators went to, to avoid copying anybody else. It’s curious, to say the least, how many different ways there are to express the same idea.