Did Science Influence Translation?

Deacon · Oct 20, 2011

In a footnote in Andrew White’s, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896, he writes:

For beliefs of various nations of antiquity that the earth's center was in their most sacred place, see citations from Maspero, Charton, Sayce, and others in Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth, chap. iv. As to the Greeks, we have typical statements in the Eumenides of Æschylus, where the stone in the altar at Delphi is repeatedly called "the earth's navel"—which is precisely the expression used regarding Jerusalem in the Septuagint translation of Ezekiel (see below).

The proof texts on which the mediaeval geographers mainly relied as to the form of the earth were Ezekiel v, 5, and xxxviii, 12. The progress of geographical knowledge evidently caused them to be softened down somewhat in our King James's version; but the first of them reads, in the Vulgate, "Ista est Hierusalem, in medio gentium posui eam et in circuitu ejus terrae"; and the second reads, in the Vulgate, "in medio terrae," and in the Septuagint, ἐπὶ τὸν ὀμφαλὸν τῆς γῆς.
That the literal centre of the earth was understood, see proof in St. Jerome, Commentat. in Ezekiel, lib. ii; and for general proof, see Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, pp. 207, 208. For Rabanus Maurus, see his De Universo, lib. xii, cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p. 339. For Hugh of St. Victor, se his De Situ Terrarum, cap. ii. For Dante's belief, see Inferno, canto xxxiv, 112-115:

"E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto,
Ch' e opposito a quel che la gran secca
Coverchia, e sotto il cui colmo consunto
Fu l'uom che nacque e visse senza pecca."

For orthodox geography in the Middle Ages, see Wright's Essays on Archaeology, vol. ii, chapter on the map of the world in Hereford Cathedral; also the rude maps in Cardinal d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi; also copies of maps of Marino Sanuto and others in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 210; also Münster, Fac Simile dell' Atlante di Andrea Bianco, Venezia, 1869. And for discussions of the whole subject, see Satarem, vol. ii, p. 295, vol. iii, pp. 71, 183, 184, and elsewhere. For a brief summary with citations, see Eiken, Geschichte, etc., pp. 622, 623.
[Vol I, p. 99,100]
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The verse in question reads differently in various versions.

Ezekiel 38:12 (AV 1873)
to take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

Ezekiel 38:12 (ESV)
to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth.

Were the translators of the KJV influenced by scientific knowledge?

Did the KJV “soften” its translation based upon this knowledge or is it a strictly literal translation of the passage? ... or something else?

Rob

rsr · Oct 20, 2011

I think White may have supposed too much.

First, the KJV translators in this case were cribbing from the Bishops and Geneva, all of which picked up the wording from Coverdale. There is no evidence that they gave much thought to the rendering, for any reason.

That does beg the question of why this rendering arose. Wycliffe had translated it as navel of the earth and Luther had rendered it similarly; the original Douai followed suit. I don't know the answer, but I don't think you can assume new geographic findings were the reason. Even if such discoveries were taken into account, Israel (or Jerusalem) as the theological center of the earth was certainly defensible.

Did Science Influence Translation?

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