Bob Burns (of Summa Scriptura), in a posting on The Biblicalist on Yahoo groups, has provided a chart to sort out which apocryphal books are available in which of 12 English translations, how they are presented, and which texts they use as their basis. He provides his results as a XML spreadsheet, a MS Excel spreadsheet, or as an image file. (Click on the graphic above.) You should read his whole post to understand his evaluative guidelines, but in general, the translations based on the texts in the blue shaded lines are the best. Translations which include the most texts or more than one if there is an alternative text receive extra points. On this basis, the NETS (the New English Translation of the Septuagint), NRSV, and ESV come out 'best.' There are, of course, other ways these translations could be evaluated, and each of them have historical interest, but this is a helpful table providing a quick overview. Thanks to Bob!UPDATE (2008.12.26): Note that Bob has now updated the data to include both Brenton's translation of the Septuagint and RH Charles' translations in his OT Apocrypha.
I'd be curious to see how the Brenton Septuagint Translation compares to some of the others.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I responded on the Biblicalist asking if he had the info for it to add to his chart.
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