The Translation of the New Testament into Hebrew in the Eyes of Franz Delitzsch

TRANSLATIONS WROCŁAW THEOLOGICAL REVIEW 26 (2018) No 1 DOI: 10.34839/wpt.2018.26.1.85-96 Eran Shuali THE TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT INTO HEBREW IN THE EYES OF FRANZ DELITZSCH: PHILOLOGY, MISSION, THEOLOGY Franz Delitzsch had a brilliant academic career. After receiving his Habilitation in Theology from the University of Leipzig in 1842 at the age of 29, Delitzsch held professorships in Faculties of Protestant Theology at the University of Rostock from 1846 to 1850, at the University of Erlangen from 1850 to 1867 and from 1867 until his death in 1890 back at the University of Leipzig.1 He became most known for his numerous academic works on the Old Testament, namely his commentaries on Habakkuk (1843), the Song of Songs (1851), Genesis (1852), the Psalms (1859, 1860), Job (1864), Isaiah (1866), Proverbs (1873), and the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes (1875). In addition, he published several books on post-biblical Judaism: a wide-ranging book On the History of Jewish Poetry (1836), 2 an edition of the Karaite book ʿĒṣ Ḥayyim by Aharon ben Elia. 3 Delitzsch also published properly theological works: A System of Biblical Psychology (1855),4 and A System of Christian Wagner, Franz Delitzsch, 65–119. For a more concise description, see Delitzsch’s short autobiography which exists in two different English translations in Hilprecht, “Franz Delitzsch. Autobiography,” 212; and in Curtiss, Franz Delitzsch, 84. 2 Delitzsch, Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Poësie. 3 Delitzsch, ed., ʿĒṣ Ḥayyim. See Lasker, “Moritz Steinschneider,” 357–358. I thank Daniel Lasker for drawing my attention to this work by Delitzsch. 4 Delitzsch, System der biblischen Psychologie. In the introduction to this book, Delitzsch explains: “under the name of biblical psychology I understand a scientific representation of the doctrine of Scripture on the psychical constitution of man as it was created, 1 86 Eran Shuali Apologetics (1869)5; as well as a volume of personal prayers entitled The Sacrament of the True Body and Blood of Jesus Christ: Confession and Communion Prayers (1844);6 and much more.7 Alongside his academic work, Delitzsch dedicated much effort to the mission to the Jews. In his book Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum published in 1838 when Delitzsch was 25 years old, he wrote: It is in order to preach to you the gospel of Christ crucified, and for no other purpose and with no other motivation, that I have begun to learn your languages and to examine your literature. And now too, apart from the supreme purpose of my studies which is to serve the church of God, I know no other goal than to exhort you untiringly, with confident reasoning, to accept Jesus Christ, the one whom you rejected.8 In 1863, Delitzsch founded the journal Saat auf Hoffnung: Zeitschrift für die Mission der Kirche an Israel (Seed in Hope: Journal for the Church’s Mission to Israel), which he edited until 1886 and in which he frequently wrote.9 He also wrote a longer missionary treatise entitled Ernste Fragen an die Gebildeten jüdischer Religion (Serious Questions to the Educated Members of the Jewish Religion [1888]).10 In Delitzsch’s Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum from 1838, we also find the first mention of Delitzsch’s plan to produce a new Hebrew translation of the New Testament. In this book, following his critique of the existing Hebrew translations of the New Testament,11 Delitzsch offered a Hebrew translation of the Hymn to Love from 1 Corinthians 8:1–13.12 This translated text was given the title “Probe einer neuen hebräischen Übersezung des Neuen Testamentes, von ***” (Sample of a new Hebrew translation of the New Testament, by ***). Delitzsch actually set to work on his translaand the ways in which this constitution has been affected by sin and redemption.” A System of Biblical Psychology, 16. 5 Delitzsch, System der christlichen Apologetik. 6 Delitzsch, Das Sacrament. 7 For a bibliographical list of Delitzsch’s works, see Wagner, Franz Delitzsch, 470– 494. A brief and useful description of Delitzsch’s writings may be found in Driver, “Professor Franz Delitzsch,” 197–201. 8 Delitzsch, Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum, 8; Trans. Smend, “A Conservative Approach” chap. 18 of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Volume III From Modernism to Post-Modernism (The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Part 1 The Nineteenth Century – a Century of Modernism and Historicism, 516. 9 See Jean Carmignac’s introduction to Die vier Evangelien, IX. 10 Leipzig: Centralbureau der Instituta Judaica (W. Faber). 11 Delitzsch, Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum, 277–312. 12 Delitzsch, Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum, 313–314. The Translation of the New Testament into Hebrew in the Eyes of Franz Delitzsch 87 tion some twenty-six years later, in 1864.13 He began by translating what he considered to be the “Jewish-Christian Books of the New Testament”: The Gospel of Matthew, the Epistle of James, the Epistle to the Hebrews and Revelation,14 all of which he had finished by June 1865. In 1870, he published his translation of the Epistle to the Romans, with a forty-page introduction presenting his translation project.15 And in May 1874, Delitzsch wrote that his translation was completed and ready for press. A year later, in 1875, the British and Foreign Bible Society agreed to publish the translation, which finally came out in 1877. Only a few months after the publication, however, Delitzsch wrote to the British and Foreign Bible Society: “My translation seems to me a very incomplete work still. The second edition will remove many incorrectnesses, adjust many hardnesses and uneven(n) esses, and reproduce the original text more faithfully and clearer here and there.”16 And indeed in the following years, Delitzsch worked continuously on improving his translation, and published revised versions of it every year or two.17 In his revision work, Delitzsch benefited from remarks regarding his translation that he received from both Christian and Jewish scholars, among whom we may mention Jacob Levy of Wroclaw, author of influential dictionaries of Aramaic and Rabbinic Hebrew,18 David Kaufmann, professor at the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest and owner of the famous Kaufmann collection, and Samuel Rolles Driver, eminent Hebraist of the University of Oxford.19 In 1890, after the publication of ten successive editions of the translation and shortly before his death, Delitzsch entrusted his friend and colleague Gustaf Dalman with the completion of the preparation of an eleventh revised edition, which was published in 1892.20 In this article, I will examine how Franz Delitzsch himself conceived of what he called “one of the greatest and holiest tasks of my life,”21 that is, On the advancement of the translation, see Dalman, “The Hebrew New Testament,” 145–147. 14 Delitzsch, “Eine Neue hebräische Übersetzung,” in Eine Uebersetzungsarbeit von 52 Jahren, 18. 15 Delitzsch, Paulus des Apostels Brief an die Römer. 16 Letter from 1 (...truncated)