"In the beginning was the Word"
And the Word was put on sale in French supermarkets for €1.50 (£1.07 ish), and there was a wailing and gnashing of teeth. Doubtless all UK readers of my vintage will have been given a Gideon's New Testament when at school.
I am not able to believe, but it would strike me that Christians, especially Protestants, would regard the easy availability of the Louis Segond translation of 1921 as being a good thing. Perhaps even a very good thing, and very much God's work. Segond was a Swiss divine and a Calvinist, and it is his brothers in Christ at the Société Biblique de Genève who are responsible for this. The translation is freely available on the internet. The fuller verse referenced in my headline is rendered thus therein: "Au commencement était la Parole, et la Parole était avec Dieu, et la Parole était Dieu." Note also, "où il y aura des pleurs et des grincements de dents".
So, the hoo-hah: Nicolas-Jean Sed of publisher Cerf accuses the SBG of being fundamentalists, and of destabilising the market. His company sells bibles for €13-18... Elsewhere, the French Protestant Alliance biblique française reckons "To sell the Bible at €1,50 is to underestimate the professional work behind the translation. And to sell it in the supermarkets "is to make Bible a commodity". And it is putting out a bible for €3 next January....
I am not able to believe, but it would strike me that Christians, especially Protestants, would regard the easy availability of the Louis Segond translation of 1921 as being a good thing. Perhaps even a very good thing, and very much God's work. Segond was a Swiss divine and a Calvinist, and it is his brothers in Christ at the Société Biblique de Genève who are responsible for this. The translation is freely available on the internet. The fuller verse referenced in my headline is rendered thus therein: "Au commencement était la Parole, et la Parole était avec Dieu, et la Parole était Dieu." Note also, "où il y aura des pleurs et des grincements de dents".
So, the hoo-hah: Nicolas-Jean Sed of publisher Cerf accuses the SBG of being fundamentalists, and of destabilising the market. His company sells bibles for €13-18... Elsewhere, the French Protestant Alliance biblique française reckons "To sell the Bible at €1,50 is to underestimate the professional work behind the translation. And to sell it in the supermarkets "is to make Bible a commodity". And it is putting out a bible for €3 next January....
Labels: France, Men and women of the cloth
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on Friday, November 30, 2007 at 11:19 am.
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By some chance I was given two Gideon Bibles at school.
I sold the second one. It seemed only reasonable.
I can't say the ones dished out were that saleable - they had a glued red plastic cover, were in Crown 16mo and only covered the New Testament.
Still, you were doing your bit to spread The Word, so I am sure the Gideons would have approved. My school inflicted the Good News Bible on us for Divinity, which is a particularly horrible translation - from memory, it renders Mark 5:9: 'My name is Legion: for we are many' as 'my name is mob, because there are lot of us'. Ick.
I still recall being told off in RE at school when I offered to the class "In the beginning was the word and the word was Aardvark." Detention resulted a week later when asked to what St Patrick's profession was and I could not remember and said trapeeze artist. I was supposed to say profession of faith apparently...
Tony - Very good. I expect you were the class hero for that.
A chap in my class was much given to malaprops, and readings in divinity classes were enlivened by anticipating what he would mangle next - genitals for gentiles was always a safe bet, but the all time winner was haemorrhoids for haemorrhages.
Can't recall what book it is in now, but there is a line in it about animals pissing against the wall. Naturally the rest of the class were a few lines ahead of the lad reading out loud and we all wondered how this line would be spoken. Without so much as the tiniest flinch or hesitation it came out as "the animals that pie-seth against the wall". Suppressed giggles all round but we all continued to have a good mock for a long time afterwards about what we might be going to do at break time.
Courtesy of the glory that is google:
"Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel".
1Kings 21:21
Mr C - much obliged. I got the quotation slightly wrong - but it was recalled from a little over 50 years ago!
GG - all credit to you for your powers of recall. Absolutely no criticism was intended, I just thought we would all enjoy having the reference and the precise quote.
Criticism, Mr C? No no no no! That thought never came within a million miles of my poor old brain! I was merely adding an anecdote to the conversation.
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