Abstract
Bible wars. Can it be? Indeed it can. The title is fully justified, as the reader will very quickly appreciate. The reference to ‘cultural authority’ indicates that a major theme of this work is control, status and power in both church and state. Spirituality has a lesser place in the events, controversies and debates which figure in this book, and biblical scholarship was and is seen by many Russian clerics as a threat rather than a support.
The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) was a major influence in the establishment of Bible translation into modern Russian in the early nineteenth century. Its policy was to circulate the scriptures without note or comment. It is, however, surely obvious that the Bible needs interpretation. Isaiah 7:14 appears in English as, ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive’ (Authorized Version); ‘The maiden is with child’ (Jerusalem Bible). The difference is crucial. As long ago as 1920 the Primitive Methodist scholar A. S. Peake stated that the reading ‘virgin’ was ‘unjustifiable’. A footnote in the Jerusalem Bible (1966) alerts us further: the Greek text says ‘virgin’; the Hebrew text gives alanah, ‘a young girl or a recently married woman’. It is therefore a matter of some importance whether one translates from the Hebrew or from the Greek Septuagint, itself purportedly a translation from Hebrew. From which text, then, should the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) translate? It became a matter of the greatest significance.
This is only one of an immense series of questions: who has the right (if it is a question of right) to decide which text and from which language we translate, into which language we translate, and into which style of language (‘high’ or demotic)? Who should be allowed to publish the translation? Who should distribute and sell the translations, once they are published? Who should be allowed to read the Bible? And as interpretation of the scriptures is necessary, who is to be allowed to engage in such exegesis? Should the ROC consider scholarship from abroad, even perhaps from Jewish academies? In a free country these matters are a subject of debate and discussion. In nineteenth-century Russia they were a matter of politics, control, patriotism, authority and the obsessive need of government to enforce conformity in every sphere of national life.
All these issues are raised, discussed and elaborated in fascinating detail by Professor Batalden in this excellent book. It is perhaps in the section on the Pavskii affair (pp. 96–112) of the early 1840s that they are highlighted to maximum effect: theology students were submitted to an intrusive investigation by church authorities, because those authorities suspected that their tutor, Archpriest G. P. Pavskii, the greatest Hebraist alive in Russia at the time, might just possibly have been interpreting the Old Testament scriptures in a manner that the hierarchy did not entirely support. His translations, pirated and circulated by his enthusiastic students, were made from the Hebrew; by this time the forces of clerical fundamentalism ascribed authority and doctrinal purity to the Septuagint and the Church Slavonic liturgical language. Holy tradition in their view was therefore called into question.
Russian Bible Wars contains a chronological account of biblical translation from the foundation of the Russian Bible Society in 1812, its closure in 1826, the re-institution of translation under Alexander II, to the renaissance and development of Russian biblical scholarship up to the 1917 revolution. Of no less interest than the nineteenth-century ‘wars’ is Batalden’s ‘Afterword’: an account of émigré work on Bible translation in the twentieth century and the re-emergence of serious interest in Russia today. He stresses throughout the book that religious authority has always been culturally conditioned. While this may seem patently obvious, it is unquestionable that the obvious often needs to be stated. Indeed, while the subject matter of this book is the Church and religion, it cannot be separated from the political, social, economic and historical events and changes which form the background to the Bible Wars.
Of particular value in this book is the annotated bibliography of the Russian Bible, 1794–1991. This is an immense work of scholarship, description and annotation covering nearly 150 pages and with 350 entries. It represents a phenomenal effort on the part of the author. It would have been tempting to say that this bibliography represents the most impressive achievement of the book, but that would unjustly disparage the stimulating narrative and discussion in the main text, which can scarcely be faulted. The few illustrations are none the less illuminating (a pity they are not listed); there are numerous footnotes, a 28-page select bibliography and an index.