The Bible covers some 6,000 years of history (4,000 in the Old Testament alone). The Bible is not just a book but it is a compilation of 66 books. The time and events of the Bible point to the chosen people of God (the Israelites) through whom our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ was to be born and God’s plan of redemption fulfilled. The Bible was written by approximately 40 different authors over a period of around 1,500 years from 1500BC to 100AD. Each writer wrote from a different perspective, to a different audience, for a different purpose.
The books of the Old Testament are written in the language of the people of Israel (that is, Hebrew); the books of the New Testament are written in the language generally spoken in the East at the time they were composed, viz, Greek. Of the books of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew is said to have been originally written in Hebrew.
The Hebrew books of the Old Testament were translated into Greek about 300BC, so that the learned heathen world became acquainted with the prophecies concerning the Messiah.
Koine Greek (‘the common dialect’, also simply called koine ‘common [language]’, besides the Alexandrian dialect, common Attic or Hellenistic Greek) is the popular form of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity (c.300 BC – AD300), developing from the Attic dialect, with a mixture of elements especially from Ionic. Koine was the first common supra-regional dialect in Greece and came to serve as a lingua franca for the eastern Mediterranean and Near East throughout the Roman period.
It is also the language of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) and of the Christian New Testament.[2] Koine is the main ancestor of modern Greek. As the language of the New Testament and of the Church Fathers, Koine Greek is also known as Biblical, Patristic or New Testament Greek.
In the first century AD some Christians of Italy began to translate the Holy Scripture from Greek into Latin and this translation was afterwards improved by Jerome (430), who translated the Hebrew books afresh from the original. This Latin Bible is called the Vulgate. In latter years the Bible was translated into most of the living languages.
Between the Old Testament and the New Testament there is a time gap known as the “silent years”. This is a period when the Holy Spirit was not talking through the oracles of the Lord (the Prophets). In the Bible we find how the world was populated with the spreading of people and tribes and their roots to modern day nations. The Old Testament is in the New Testament explained and the New Testament is in the Old Testament contained. The main themes of the Bible deal with God, man, sin, redemption, justification, glorification, grace and glory in Christ. Throughout the Bible there is the underlying webbing and seal of God.
The Bible as a history book makes us history changers and history makers not repeating the same mistakes of history. Up to the present day, the surviving parts of the oldest Bible is reunited online generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.
It is calculated that one out of every three scientists does not believe in God and so for the unbelieving scientist, Atheist or Gnostic who still doubts the existence of God, there are some valuable scientific insights with respective Scripture references. From mediaeval time and then again accompanying the Protestant Reformation, there was a marked increase in interest in the scriptures.
Notwithstanding the oppositional attitude adopted by the Roman Catholic Church at and after the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the translation and circulation of the Bible were undertaken with greater zeal, and in a more systematic fashion. The Maltese translation of the Bible is the product of literary and religious factors and, to a certain extent, private enterprise. For many long centuries (until the closing years of the 18th century), the Maltese language was never used for literary purposes, the languages of education being Latin and Italian.
The earlier Maltese writers found an enormous difficulty to reduce to some sort of Latin script a Semitic language, which had many sounds that were absent in Romance languages. Moreover, up to the beginning of the 19th century, the education of the population was very poor.
In the year 1836 there were only three government elementary schools: one in Valletta, the capital, another in Senglea and the third, very poorly attended, in Gozo, the sister island, in all of which the instruction was of a meagre and wretched character. As there were very few who could write and read Maltese, the need of a Maltese translation of the Bible was not yet felt.
Mikiel Anton Vassalli’s first translation was of the Gospel of St John Il Vangelo di Nostro Signore Gesu` Cristo secondo S. Giovanni tradotto in lingua italiana e maltese secondo la Volgata, Londra, R. Watts, 1822.
Apart from Vassalli, other early Maltese translators include M. A. Camilleri’s edition of Psalms based on the Hebrew text (1845), R. Taylor’s Psalms and Song of Songs (1846), Manwel Dimech’s four Gospels, the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, and the Book of Revelations (1911), C. Cortis’, Ruth (1924), and Pietru Pawl Saydon’s complete Maltese Bible, Il-Kotba Mkaddsa bil-Malti (1929-59).
The following is a list of some of the early Bible books translated in pamphlet form during the early 20th century
• 1910 – Hajjet Tobija – S. Frendo de Mannarino
• 1914 – Li Storia Sagra It-Testment Kadim u It-Testment il-Gdid – Emilio Lombardi
• 1924 – Ktieb Makkabin – P.P. Grima
• 1927 – Tobia – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1927 – Gherf – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1928 – Il-Profeti Guiditta u Jonah – P.P. Grima
• 1928 - Ecclesiasticus – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1928 – Ester u Rut – P.P. Grima
• 1929 – Ittri ta’ L’Appostli – P.P. Grima
• 1929 – Daniel – P.P Grima
• 1929 – Job – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1929 – Ktieb il-Ghana ta David (150 Salm) – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1929 – Mhallfin – P.P Grima
• 1930 – Ktieb Hisaija – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1931 – Iz-zewg kotba tal-Grajja jeu tal-Paralipoma – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1932 - Mhallfin u Ruth – P.P. Saydon
• 1933 – Taghlim zghir iehor fuq il-Kotba tal-Bibba No.1 u No. 2 – Alfons Maria Galea
• 1937 – Vangeli fi kliem San Mark – Ghaqda ta’ qari tajjeb.
In 1800, Malta voluntarily became part of the British Empire. Under the terms of the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, Malta under British colonialism began to face challenges it never experienced before. In 1808, Britain allowed the Protestant Bible Societies to establish their presence in Malta and distribute literature in English and Italian. The British and Foreign Bible Society was one of the earliest to be established and was very active.
Bible Societies are an attractive form of common action for Christians who take the Bible seriously. Since the year 1809, Bible Societies had striven to establish themselves in Malta, and for this purpose they sent many boxes full of Bibles in the Italian and Maltese languages to be distributed in Malta. This activity, however, was soon frustrated, because some of the Bibles distributed in Valletta reached the local priests, who energetically fought this kind of Protestant propaganda, banning their reading by Catholics.
During Maitland’s governorship of Malta (1813-1824) the Bible Society in Malta was forbidden to call itself Bible Society of Malta or to circulate versions of the Scriptures in Maltese. The Catholic Church forbade the use of the Bible without notes and comments to point out the true meaning of the several passages and, when the Society started distributed unannotated Italian translations, the Archbishop protested even against the presentation of copies to crew members of ships calling at Malta.
During the period 1847-1917, Protestant missionary activity in Malta grew weaker and no fresh translation of any book of the Bible was made. Catholics were very slow to make the Bible accessible to the people, although the Maltese language was becoming every day more pliable and more suitable for literary purposes.
Two persons in the Maltese Catholic Church who stand out in Malta’s Bible translation history are Profs Mons. Peter Paul Saydon (1885-1971) and the first Maltese to be declared as saint of Malta by the Catholic Church, St Gorg Preca (1880-1962). Despite opposition from the Catholic Church, St Gorg Preca and Mons. P. P. Saydon had realised that although Malta was virtually completely Catholic and all the population was church-going, most Maltese Catholics knew very little about the truths of Christianity.In general, religion was based on the practice of popular devotions and little else. St Gorg Preca was imbued with the idea of using laymen (and eventually women as well) to serve the Church, primarily by helping them lead a truly Christian life and a dedication to evangelisation. St Gorg Preca seemed to have been thinking of the problem of evangelisation for a long time.
The Bible had been for a large part of the 20th century a closed untouchable book to the large majority of the Maltese as there was no Maltese translation. Prof. Mons. P. P. Saydon, a world-renowned Biblical scholar, was the first to translate the whole Bible into Maltese from the original languages – a classical translation which cost him 30 years (1929-59) of painstaking work.
The Maltese Catholic Church seemed to not have supported Mons. Saydon in his work and neither motivated him. In fact, as Mons. Saydon himself later testified he would have stopped his work if it were not for the tangible support he got from Rev. Preca and from the members of his society who used to buy the greatest bulk of the books. Mons. Saydon appreciated the biblical grounding of Rev. Preca’s talks and sermons. Saydon was to describe Rev. Preca as an eminent “evangelical preacher”.
The Norwegian Evangelist David Wulff Wintersborg got in touch with Karm Zammit, an ex-politician with the Malta Labour Party (now Partit Laburista) and encouraged him to translate the Bible into Maltese. He was supported by Troens Bevis and worked for some 17 years to complete it. During that time, Mons. P. P. Saydon’s Bible was not distributed for sale on a large scale by the Catholic Church and one could only obtain parts of the Bible that were in print.
The Bible sponsored by Partners International translated by Mr Zammit was published in 1981 and made available to the Maltese reading public. Historically speaking, this was the first complete Bible in Maltese to be distributed on a large scale in Malta.
Eventually, the Catholic Church through the Ghaqda Biblika Maltija also published a Bible for the Maltese reading public in 1984.
Times have changed since the above historical background and today we find that the Faculty of Theology of the University of Malta offers courses in Sacred Scripture, Hebrew and Greek that include:
• Comparative Study of Maltese Bible Translations;
• Bible Translation techniques and methodology;
• Towards a New History of Bible Translation in Maltese;
• Applying Discourse Analysis and Narratology to Narrative • Texts in the Old Testament;
• Lectio Divina as Contemporary Method of Prayer with the Bible.
In November 2005 the Maltese Bible in Braille text was launched (the Gospels, Acts and Psalms). The painstaking job of proof-reading the Maltese Braille text and checking it with the printed Maltese Bible was patiently and carefully performed by Charles Borg and the Rev. Paul Sciberras. There are about 1,800 blind people in Malta who can make use of the Bible.