Thursday, October 13, 2005

A Translation of the Septuagint is on the way

Fr. Deacon Michael Hyatt, who was recently elected CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publisher in the world, was recently featured on the Internet/Radio broadcast of "Come Receive The Light". You can hear that show by clicking here. Thomas Nelson is the publisher of the New King James Version, which is the best contemporary English translation of the Bible (which is based on the traditional Received (aka Byzantine, aka Majority) Greek Text of the New Testament. The Orthodox consider the Septuagint Greek text of the Old Testament to be the more reliable than the Masoretic Hebrew Text, and to date there has only been a somewhat awkward translation into English of the full Septuagint text. However, Thomas Nelson, which has already published the New Testament Orthodox Study Bible, is going to publish a complete Bible that will use the New King James New Testament text, and a new translation of the Septuagint, that will follow the style of the New King James. Previous press releases had indicated it would be out this year, but Fr. Michael Hyatt answered the question of when this text would be out as follows:

"...we're probably still about a year and a half away.. we've got the full manuscript in house now, thank God, but now it begins its scholarly review...."

In many ways this is good news, because that means this will not be a half baked job, but will be something of the highest quality. I am looking forward to seeing the final product.