“[It is illegal for anyone to translate the]
Bible in Castilian romance [Spanish] or in any other vulgar tongue, the Spanish
New Testament of Francisco de Enzinas…and any other books of Holy Scripture in
Castilian romance, French or Flemish or any other tongue which have prefaces,
notes or glosses that reveal erroneous doctrines repugnant or contrary to our
holy Catholic faith or to the sacraments of Holy Mother Church” (Index of the Spanish Inquisition, 1551).
It was in this environment of intimidation and
persecution that the Spanish reformer Francisco de Enzinas published the first
known translation of the New Testament from the original Greek into Castilian
in 1543. He was one of the first to convert to the cause of the Spanish
Protestant Reformation. The translation was done directly from the Greek, using
as basis the Greek text of Erasmus of Rotterdam (for which he himself was
arrested in Brussels, leading to his work being prohibited by the Inquisition).
Enzinas dedicated his edition to Emperor Charles V, mentioning the three
reasons that led to his work: the assurance that such a translation would serve
both God and the Christian world, the honor this would bring to the Spanish
nation, and the fact that the author considered the work as not violating any
law.
From 1556 to 1560, Dr. Juan Perez de Pineda
published a number of works in Geneva designed to introduce these ideas
throughout the rest of Spain. Among these was his translation of the New
Testament, only the second complete translation into Castilian. Perez was
helped by Enzinas’ translation. However, quick opposition in their native
country led both of them into exile. But thanks primarily to the efforts of one
Julian Hernandez, copies were spread by smuggling them into Catholic churches
and monasteries. Like Enzinas and Perez, Julian was persecuted by the Catholics
but, unlike them, he did not escape the hands of the Spanish Inquisitors.
“Unfortunately,
Julian was betrayed by a supposed friend and imprisoned for his ‘crime’ of
Bible smuggling. He was brutally tortured by the Catholic Inquisitors. After
three years of remaining firm in the faith despite the persecution, refusing to
denounce his convictions, Julian was burned alive at the stake.”
Casiodoro de Reina was a Catholic monk in the monastery
of San Isidoro del Campo in the city of Sevilla where he obtained one of
Julian’s contraband New Testaments by Enzinas-Pineda. He immediately set to
work on what would become the most famous of the early Spanish Bible
translations, La Biblia del Oso, published in 1569.
Like Enzinas and Pineda before him, Reina made
extensive use of various sources for his translation, some of which are
mentioned in his introduction. The work also shows other sources used, which
were not mentioned for fear of the Inquisition. The basic texts used were the
Hebrew and Greek texts available at the time: the Masoretic Hebrew text and the
Greek texts compiled and used by Erasmus. In addition Reina also used the Latin
version made in Lyon in 1528 by Sancte Pagnini, the Bible of Ferrara, the Latin
Bible of Zurich and the Latin Bible of Sebastian Castellón. But most of all,
Reina extensively used the Spanish translations of Francisco de Enzinas, Juan
Perez and Juan de Valdés. All of these books were banned by the Catholic compendium
known as the Index of Forbidden Books.
Like Enzinas before him, Reina sought the
acceptance of the Catholic Church and the Spanish government. Unfortunately,
these not only rejected his translation but made it illegal, persecuting anyone
involved in its distribution.
“He
was constantly pursued by the Catholic Inquisitors and a price was placed on
his head. He was labeled a heretic, a criminal, and was even accused of being a
Sodomite by the Catholic Church. [His translation] was labeled [as] ‘a most dangerous
edition of the Bible.’”
In his dedication to his 1543 edition, Enzinas
“fiercely postulated the convenience and necessity to translate biblical texts
in their native language and in particular to Spanish.” Years before he died of
a plague that was raging in Europe, Enzinas wrote to a friend saying:
“I'm
working with good conscience, God is my witness. If the people of this time do
not thank me, I hope others in the future come with a better judgment, who will
be better served by our studies.”
More prophetic words could not have been written
but, unfortunately, the effort and hard work of these first Spanish Reformers
are yet to be fully appreciated by modern biblical translators. They until this
day continue to ignore the simplicity and truth brought by these scholars,
attained through their rigorous study and knowledge of the original biblical
text. The best example of this is the way they translated John’s prologue.
Logos: Word
or Verb?
“In
the beginning was the word [la palabra] and the word was with God and God was
the word…All things were created by her and without her nothing that that is
made was made. In her was life…She was the true light that illuminates all men
who come into the world.”
The fidelity of the first Spanish Reformers in translating
logos as “palabra” (“word”) instead of “verbo” (verb), followed by feminine
pronouns (“she, her”) instead of masculine (“he”), has survived in a few modern
translations. But unfortunately they have been overshadowed by the
overwhelmingly popular Spanish version known as the Reina-Valera, itself
influenced by the (in)famous King James Bible of 1611. This version has been
proven time and time again, by Catholic and Protestant scholars alike, to be
one of the worst — not only for its antiquated style but, more importantly,
because of its many errors.
An example of this is the persistent addition since
the 1500s of the only verse which explicitly teaches a Trinitarian doctrine, 1
John 5.7-8, also known as the Johannine Comma.
The first Reina-Valera edition of 1569 was
subsequently revised by a number of editors and biblical groups through the
centuries. Indeed, they changed the all-important meaning that was first
faithfully translated from the original languages by the first Catholic
converts to Protestantism: Enzinas (1543), Pineda (1556), Reina (1569) and
Valera (1602).
The first to introduce this fatal interpretation
into the text of John’s prologue, changing the feminine noun “palabra” to the
masculine “verbo,” was the Spanish scholar Pedrosa Lorenzo Lucena in 1862.
Lucena was a Catholic bishop who later joined the Protestant Episcopal flock.
His task was not only to change the antiquated spelling, but also to revise
forms and meaningless expressions into the modern Castilian. In the process, he
changed the significance of logos.
Unfortunately, Lucena’s translation was adopted not
only by the Catholic Church but by all the Protestant Bible societies.
Therefore, from 1869, Lucena’s text appears in Bibles published in London,
Madrid and Barcelona. Nowadays the Reina-Valera Bible, thanks in large part to
Lucena’s revision, remains the most popular version in Spanish, reaching an
annual distribution of some two million copies.
So why the change of the word “palabra” to “verbo”?
The answer should be self-evident.
Christological
Prejudice
“As
a matter of solid fact…such a rendering is a frightful mistranslation. It
overlooks entirely an established rule of Greek grammar” (Bruce Metzger on John
1.1).
The reader of John 1 can come to a Trinitarian
interpretation only with an already developed Christology. That is why many
Spanish readers find it hard to read logos in John 1.1 as “palabra,” since the
translation of logos into a feminine noun necessitates the use of feminine
pronouns in the rest of the prologue. That is why translators chose the
masculine noun "verbo" which in turn was probably taken from the
“verbum” of the Latin Vulgate by Jerome, a version made famous since the 19th
century.
Furthermore, any Greek lexicon confirms that logos
means "word" and never "verb." Logos can also mean: story,
cause, communication, doctrine, purpose, preaching, thought, mind, plan,
activity, statement, expression. As we can see, logos can never be translated
as “verb”! However many Spanish dictionaries today have added a new meaning to
“verbo”: "The Second Person of the Holy Trinity."
In personal correspondence Professor Lynette Dyer
Vuong, Instructor of Latin at the University of Houston, wrote:
“If
the translator who used 'verbo' instead of 'palabra' did so on the basis of
gender and rejected 'palabra' because it's feminine, he was wrong...I would
side with the majority and vote for ‘palabra’, which obviously means ‘word’,
while ‘verbo’ generally means ‘verb’…It looks to me as if the Reina-Valera
translator may have had some bias against females that made him unwilling to
translate a word used to refer to the deity, who was 'with God' and 'was God,'
with a word of the feminine gender.
[Apparently,
he either didn't know or chose to ignore the fact that the word for 'spirit' as
in Holy Spirit is feminine in Hebrew. (It's neuter in Greek and masculine in
Latin.)]
Translators
should give as nearly as possible the meaning of the words and keep their own
biases and agenda out of it.
I
think you are right on in your assessment. I agree with you.”
