A literary detective story, a historical survey, and an important contribution to translation studies

This book from Kenneth J. Thomas is both a philological and linguistic analysis of Persian translations and a call for interfaith cooperation. Thomas appraises biblical translation efforts from the fifth to the twenty-first centuries of Persian history when successive translators and groups of translators, sometimes of different faiths, worked to reshape and refine versions of the Bible in the supple Persian language of their times. Restless, impelled, and wide-ranging, this is a story of translations commissioned by shahs, undertaken by Christian and Jewish communities, and produced by teams working outside the country.

Features

• Demonstration of the effects of the lack of a standard Persian vocabulary for key biblical terms on literary style and word choice
• Technical analyses and overviews of Persian biblical translations
• A careful examination of sixteen centuries' worth of Bible translations

Kenneth J. Thomas was a translation consultant of the United Bible Societies for twenty years, during which he worked with translation projects in the Middle East and South Asia. Thomas is the co-author of A Handbook on Ezra and Nehemiah with Philip A. Noss, and Structure and Orality in 1 Peter: A Guide for Translators with Margaret O. Thomas, both books published by the United Bible Society.