Abstract
Medieval Czech translation of the whole Bible was edited by four redactions between the years 1360-1489. The New Testament of the fourth redaction is formed by two translation variants of the text.
The older variant is ascribed to the Czech Utraquist assistant bishop, theologist, and diplomat Martin Lupáč (died 1468). The more recent variant is represented by the New Testament of the Prague Bible (1488), the first Slavic printed Bible, which was apparently translated by an unknown group of translators from the conservative Utraquist circles of the University of Prague.
The aim of this study was to characterize the main translation approaches used in the New Testament of the Prague Bible. We compared the text of the New Testament in its four redactions, and focused on detection of translation innovations in the Prague Bible, especially with comparison to the text of M.
Lupáč, which was uased as a pattern for its text. Our results showed that there are two translation trends in the New Testament of the Prague Bible.
The first trend is characterized by efforts to create more understandable translations by adding accessible medieval Bible commentaries and explanatory dictionaries. The translators also used new lexicon of typical Bible phrases and added new more expressive formulations.
The second translation trend is represented by efforts to eliminate too innovative lexicon used previously by Lupáč, which was not appropriate to typical Old Czech Bible style, for example germanisms (rathúz, jarmark, krumfešt) or ecclesiological terms in the context of Utraquist theology (episcopus translated as kněz). Prague Bible used obsolete periphrastic negative imperative with verb chtieti or roditi according to the Latin model, and the obsolete imperfect form in case of same verbs which were used by Lupáč in the perfect form.
There is also some lexical concordance between the Prague Bible and the oldest Bible translation of 1st or 2nd redaction - one remarkable example is the anew translation of synagoga as škola and dominus as hospodin. Our study has revealed that translators of the Prague Bible had their own langue style.
They attempted to include more accurate translations, distanced from the old constructions by imitating the Latin model, implemented new expressions, but also included more archaic lexicon and archaic grammar forms in accordance withthe eldest translations.