The Liturgical Translation of the Orthodox Old Testament Awaits Publication
As readers will know, since 2005 a translation of the Psalter has been available on the Orthodox England website. 1 The particularity of this translation is that it was made from the Septuagint, as received by the Orthodox Church, and translated into liturgical English, as established by the King James Bible. We thus called it the ‘King James Septuagint’ Psalter, since it follows the pattern of Orthodox liturgical English set by the brilliant translation of the Lenten Triodion by the then Archim. Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary over thirty years ago. In 2008 a version of this translation was published by CTOS in California.
We have now heard that the entire text of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, translated into liturgical English on the same principles as the Psalter from the text published by Apostoliki Diakonia of the Greek Orthodox Church, is completed. It had been expected that the complete Septuagint, like the Psalter, would be published by CTOS, but in the event this initiative fell through. However, we hope that the ‘King James Septuagint’ may still be published in full, perhaps in the USA, in the next year or two. Meanwhile, for readers’ interest we here publish, with permission, the translation of the Book of Genesis.
Fr Andrew
1. See: http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/pdf/kjvsept.pdf
