Mark Bostridge

The Bible exists in some 700 languages – so it still has a long way to go

With 7,000 living languages now in the world, there are countless pitfalls for translators, as John Barton demonstrates

William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English and was burned at the stake for heresy in 1536. [Alamy] 
issue 26 November 2022
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  • The Word: On the Translation of the Bible

    John Barton

    Allen Lane, pp. 290, £25

I’ve never met John Barton. But reading his books on the Bible I keep thinking of him as an early church father, perhaps St Jerome. Barton has the obligatory beard, he’s an ordained minister in the Church of England, and his writing is sage and measured, scholarly but accessible.

Jerome was of course the translator of the Bible into Latin.

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