Volume 26, Number 12 · July 19, 1979
The Lattimore Version
By Frank Kermode
The Four Gospels and the Revelation
translated by Richmond Lattimore
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 301 pp., $10.95
The abundance, in our time, of singlehanded noninstitutional translations of the Bible, and especially of the New Testament—Richmond Lattimore's is the most recent—is a phenomenon worth a moment's thought. The earliest versions were made in defiance of the religious establishment, but the Church eventually took them over and established a fairly effective monopoly. Some sort of doctrinal position-taking was inevitable; King James's translators used the older Protestant versions, but did not endorse them. The Catholic (Douai) translation was primarily meant for priests who would need to be able to confute, in the vulgar tongue, the heresies of Protestants with the vernacular Bible at their fingertips.
Review, 2694 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |