The Bible, the most translated book in the world and its culturally transversal value

The cultural value of books is intrinsic and extrinsic, they represent a word of mouth between the various generations that follow one another and build the basis of knowledge of the traditions from which every people can draw

And for this reason, some cornerstones of world libraries were translated long before they were printed.

Today the most translated book in the world is the Bible , transposed into 2,883 languages; the New Testament has been translated into 1,329 languages; and the Old and New Testaments together, in 531 languages. Other religious books and documents are also listed among the world’s most translated publications, such as those of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world.

In the modern versions, even the online Bible preserves all the dictates and anecdotes of the book most handed down on a generational level, and is also made available to the new generations, thanks to the cultural and historical anecdotes of the various peoples who have crossed it in the stories.

Some peculiarities and curiosities of the Bible

The Bible is a collective work. To write a collective work, authors must first consult together to decide on the contribution of each. The Bible was written by more than 40 authors who did not know each other and this book has been composed and revised over 1500 years. Thus more than 40 generations have worked on this work which represents an undeniable miracle of historical memory.

The Bible is a homogeneous work. This series of books are varied and complementary testimonies that address the great spiritual questions: Who is God? Who is the man? Is there a possible relationship between God and man and how does it happen? This is the main theme of the entire Bible. The genres used to deal with this subject are numerous: poetry, sermon, prophetic writing, didactic exposition, etc. as well as the topics covered: history, theology, philosophy, nature, cosmos, thus attributing to this work an undeniable cultural value in a transversal way .

The Bible is always current. These books were written in a small state, Palestine. They are among the oldest writings of humanity. Yet they continue to challenge writers even today. Each generation has found a deep interest in it: the Bible remains the bestseller of all time.

The Bible is a work of translations and reissues . It has many: it is the most translated (2200 partial translations – 400 complete translations). It was the first printed book: the Vulgate of 1456 in 2 volumes. It is the most widely distributed book (more than 2 billion works – 50 million copies per year). It is the most copied book: for 3000 years by hand. It is the one for which we have the most complete or partial manuscripts.

The Bible is a literary and ethical work. Many of its parts are recognized literary pages. Inserted into the cultural context of the time, the Bible still offers a great moral and clearly highlights the weaknesses of human motivations.

The Syrian ruins show the origins of the tablets of Egypt and the birth of writing right from the ancestors of the Bible

It is not easy to know all the sources of the authors who participated in the history by contributing to the history of this manuscript.

What is known for certain is that this story was written by a scholar, Moses , raised to the court of the pharaoh in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

We have scientific evidence of this passage, in fact in 1975 a team of Italian archaeologists discovered 15,000 clay tablets from the time of Abraham in Syria . The discovery of a great urban civilization within this archaeological research that arose in northern Syria 4,400 years ago and rivaled its only contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Egypt, has been hailed as one of the most significant archaeological advances of the century.

The most significant find was precisely that of the palace archive, which contained the 15,000 clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions which, although still only partially deciphered, attest to a vast commercial and cultural empire that flourished for at least 800 years. It was in those early cities that complex writing systems developed, ostensibly as a means of coping with major administrative problems.

The multiplication of versions of the Bible over the centuries

This continuing attraction of the Bible, also and above all thanks to related scientific discoveries, across space and time explains the concern to cover all languages ​​spoken: 98% of the population can already read the Bible or the Gospel in their mother tongue, and with its modern online transposition, it is to make it understandable to our contemporaries.

Language evolves and some words age or change meaning. The original text of the Bible is better understood and errors are eliminated. Linguistics has evolved and we know better the evolution of the original languages. The New Testament was written in a Greek that has its own peculiarities (Koin Greek), different from classical Greek. The words have different meanings and it is a question of taking into account the context, and with the introduction of chronological tables and atlases of the places this is facilitated.

This proves the divine inspiration of the Bible, this book from which generations of men have drawn their moral resources, so it must be kept accessible anytime, anywhere.