Principles and Problems of Biblical Translation: Some Reformation Controversies and their Background

From the foreword by Dr C. H. Dodd: ‘Those who are hardy enough to put their hands to the fascinating but elusive task of Bible translation soon become aware of a host of problems which must be settled one way or other in the course of the work. Questions cannot be either evaded or answered out of hand. That they are no new questions we may learn from this book. The controversy between Erasmus and Luther was essentially the same as the controversy between Jerome and Augustine centuries earlier; and indeed the main issues may be said to have been raised as soon as the Septuagint made a bid for acceptance as the equivalent of the Hebrew Scriptures. All this we may read, set forth with learning and penetration, in Dr Schwarz’s book. A study of it will be illuminating to the translator, salutary to the critic and profitable to anyone interested either in the art of translation in general or, particularly, in the enterprise of making the biblical writings accessible in the vernacular to the mind of this generation.