Die bronne waaruit die Nuwe Testament van die Afrikaanse Bybel vertaal is : 'n filologiese studie

Abstract

The current Afrikaans translation of the New Testament is based on the Textus Receptus and the Dutch “Statenbijbel.” At present a committee of translators is busy with a new translation of the Bible in Afrikaans. They decided to put aside the Textus Receptus and the Dutch translation in favour of the U.B.S, edition of Kurt Aland as textual basis for the Afrikaans New Testament. This decision incited much criticism from the public. A study of the correspondence and publications during the time when the current Afrikaans translation was made (1923-1933), indicates that the translators were well aware of the fact that the Textus Receptus was not the best available Greek text of the New Testament. But they were led by two notions in following the Textus Receptus: (1) As the Dutch Bible had been in use in the Afrikaans churches up to that time, they believed that the public, and therefore the Afrikaans churches, would not accept a translation which showed too much differences from the Dutch translation; (2) Assuming that the Textus Receptus had been the textual basis of the Dutch translation, they decided to keep to the Textus Receptus in translating into Afrikaans. Both notions, however, prove to have been wrong: (1) Considering the letters written by the public in protest against a mere Afrikaans “Statenbijbel”, relations with the Dutch translation could have been broken without much difficulty; (2) According to the respective dates on which the Dutch "Statenbijbel" and the Textus Receptus were published, the Textus Receptus could not have been the textual basis of the Dutch translation. There is much reason to assume that the Dutch translation was based on the text of Beza. Though the Textus Receptus is not a "bad" or "misleading" text, it exhibits a very close relationship to the text of Erasmus, a text which was prepared in such haste and was based on such scanty textual evidence, that it cannot be authoritative amongst the modern critical texts. The major textual evidence to the text of Erasmus, was MS 2, MS 2ap and MS 1r. The evidence that the New Testament textual criticism has accumulated during the past decades, indicates that all of these manuscripts belong to the Byzantine type of text, which is of much less value than the Alexandrine and Caesarean types. Most readings of the Textus Receptus are Byzantine; Sometimes the readings have little support of any kind and at some places no support at all of the Greek manuscripts. Considering these conditions, it is evident that a translation based on such a poor text cannot be standardized. Therefore it is necessary that the new translation into Afrikaans must have a modern critical text as basis.