Translation is interpretation – but what kind of interpretation?
No book has been translated more often than the Bible, which exists in 2.817 languages – and counting. In this gripping book, Karl-Heinz Göttert tells the history of these translations. From questions about the Greek and Hebrew “originals”, he shows how Bible translations shaped languages, influenced cultures, and how translators used a variety of strategies to impose their theologies – up to and including Luther’s historic translation. In so doing, he illuminates how the Bible fundamentally shaped our ideas of criticism and enlightenment, fidelity and forgery, and what language can do in the mind.
