Posted on 12/28/2016 11:59:08 AM PST by GoldenState_Rose
Earlier this week, Russian media reported a Vladivostok court handing down a 30,000-ruble ($495) fine to the Salvation Army christian organization for incorrectly marking bibles the organization was distributing. In addition to the fine, the court ordered the books' destruction – 36 Russian-language Bibles and four English-language ones among them.
It is the first precedent of implementing the “Yarovaya legislation” and its harsher regulations for missionaries. “Essentially, the organization was punished for illegal missionary – not terrorist or extremist – activity by destruction of the Bible,” a spokeswoman for the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church Xenia Chernega told Vedomosti.
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
The Russian Orthodox Church used to forbid bible distribution in Tsarist Russia (but oddly, it was OK to give bibles to criminals in Siberia; which was how Dostoveysky got one there when he was in exile.)
Likewise, the Greek Orthodox Church has opposed bible distribution (to this day, IIRC). When a modern-language Greek version was produced around 1900, it opposed it and even the then Queen was able only to get 1000 copies to give out.
Ditto for the old Romanian Orthodox Church, etc.
Ludicrous, but the same thing happened in the West
when bibles first became available in modern languages.
“Foreign missionaries may only perform missionary activities after registering for a permit from a recognized religious organization.”
“Go ye into all the world... “ — there’s the ‘permit’...
For more information on the Yarovaya legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarovaya_Law
ah yes, thanks for linking :).
Churches naturally seek to guide their flocks - and that includes guiding them in the scriptures as well. It makes perfect sense for Eastern Orthodox Churches to oppose the distribution of vernacular Bibles which were not reviewed or approved by those Churches.
In 2013: “That same year, some Greek Orthodox priests told their congregations to burn the Bibles stating “it cannot be a holy book if it is distributed by heretics.” “
https://opentheword.org/2014/07/08/greek-orthodox-church-opposes-bible-distribution-in-greece/
Those are not true statements Dostoyevsky’s access to the bible. When he was four his mother used a bible to teach him to read and write. So much for being rare contraband.
“I descended from a pious Russian family . . . We, in our family, have known the gospel almost ever since our earliest childhood”
Oh yeah that prison he went to, where you were surprised he got access to a bible. It was the only book allowed in prison! Someone has been telling you whoppers
Orthodox Bibles (especially if translated into Russian, English, etc.) have important differences from protestant Bibles:
http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_bibles.htm
http://oca.org/questions/scripture/study-of-the-bible
http://www.saintjonah.org/articles/translations.htm
English versions of an Orthodox Bible are currently a work in progress.
I wish that those “Bible societies” that are always asking me for money had Orthodox Bibles for distribution in Orthodox countries, but they only distribute protestant Bibles. Sad!!!!
When I was in Greece in 1980 I saw a translation of the New Testament which was ostensibly in Modern Greek, but it was so close to the koine original that there were just small changes. Perhaps it was an extreme version of katharevousa but I think a Greek who had not studied ancient Greek would have had a struggle making sense of the text. I don't know if there were other translations available by then which were closer to the modern language.
The Bible is a dangerous document to religions.
This one has side by side koine and demotic (modern)
https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Testament-Parallel-Modern-Language/dp/0899571301
After all, they have only had 2,000 years to get this done. Not a priority, apparently.
Bible-burning occurred in the West, but not because people wanted to keep vernacular versions out of the hands of the people. There were numerous vernacular versions published from the 4th century on (the Latin Vulgate being one of them, as that was the common language of literate people at the time). The number of vernacular versions was only limited by the fact that many peoples did not at that time have a common language or alphabet.
Bible-burning, when it did occur, was not out of hate for the Bible or the desire to not see it widely read. Rather, it was undertaken by those who disagreed with what they saw as heretical or inaccurate translations and footnotes. Thus, for example, Bibles were burned by both Catholics and Protestants (including John Calvin) to keep them from misleading their followers.
The original Anglo-Saxon Orthodox Church used Latin versions of Scriptures.
The modern English-speaking Orthodox Church is a fairly recent phenomenon, and its interest in having complete English versions of the entire Orthodox Scriptures for home use (as opposed to books or sections of Scripture for liturgical use) is more recent still.
As a Reader, I am required to read Scripture every day. I usually rely on liturgical Scripture daily readings posted on Church websites, and I also have a copy of the Orthodox Study Bible at home.
When it is time for me to read the Epistle in Divine Liturgy, I am confronted with a modern protestant version, which I find VERY unsatisfactory!! At least it is better than the situation with the Old Testament, which would be nearly impossible to deal with!!!!
In 2017, we can do better all the way around. “It’s time to make American and British Orthodoxy great again!!!!”
The English-Speaking Orthodox Church is *relatively, historically recent*, but of course you are talking about more than 100 years ago. Most translation committees take just a few years. If it were a desire of the Orthodox Church to have scritures in the language of its people, it would have already happened. When it is time for me to read the Epistle in Divine Liturgy, I am confronted with a modern protestant version, which I find VERY unsatisfactory!! At least it is better than the situation with the Old Testament, which would be nearly impossible to deal with!!!!
You're welcome FRamigo. Enjoy. There are incredibly accurate English translations of the Scriptures.
....The English-Speaking Orthodox Church is *relatively, historically recent*, but of course you are talking about more than 100 years ago...
The Church 100 or even 50 years ago was still largely in Slavonic, Greek, Arabic, etc.
.... Most translation committees take just a few years....
It took an unbelievably long time to produce the Orthodox Study Bible—especially the Old Testament! It missed several deadlines. And it’s still a work in progress.
....There are incredibly accurate English translations of the Scriptures....
Yeah. But their Old Testaments are still the Masoretic version, and lack several whole books and sections of books. And—especially with the New Testament—even protestant versions do not agree with one another, because of the desire to sound SO modern and so politically correct!!! It’s the later issue that gives me the most trouble in reading the Epistle in Divine Liturgy. Sad!
The choices are many. You can choose literal (but less dynamic, as we speak today). Among these, I like the New American Study Bible translation the best. Fantastic work for study.
[FROM WIKI: The Hebrew text used for this translation was the third edition of Rudolf Kittel's Biblia Hebraica as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia was consulted for the 1995 revision. For Greek, Eberhard Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece was used; the 23rd edition in the 1971 original,[8] and the 26th in the 1995 revision.[6]]
For reading personally or publicly, New Living Translation (used to be a paraphrase, now a translation) or one of many others.
And of course, the best Bible of all is the one you actually read :-)
I know many orthodox Orthodox don't see that Bible as official but as an Eastern Catholic that now goes to Orthodox Liturgy to get away from the popery it serves me well.
As a Liturgical Reader, I have no choice—I must use the version that our Choir Director chooses. She likes “modern”—I don’t!!!!
If I were choosing the version, I would say “use the same one as the Greeks use”. But now I see that the Antiochians have a complete book of New Testament readings as well. So that might displace my Hellenophilia—I don’t know! (And it’s good to use a word with -philia in it instead of always -phobia!!!!)
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