Editor’s Note: This continues a series of articles on Congregational Missions (Click to see more articles on this theme!). Here we see another pioneering effort in Bible Translation by Congregational Missions and other important part of the UCC story.
(c) 2008 Rev. Phil Corr Ph.D.
In my previous article I wrote about Bible translations by Congregational missionaries in India and Hawaii. In this article I would like to share with you about William Goodell, who spent much of his life serving in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). I draw the following material from my dissertation.
Goodell recognized the importance of translating the Bible into Armeno-Turkish. Under Turkish rule, approximately “one-third of the Armenians had ‘forgotten their native tongue.’” They spoke Turkish, but many could read Armenian characters. Recognizing the Armenian alphabet as powerful in their lives, Goodell set out to translate the Bible for Omanli [Turkish]-speaking Armenians. As with the translation of the Hawaiian Bible, the work on the Armeno-Turkish Bible took Goodell and his assistants almost twenty years to complete. More than either the translation work by Congregational missionaries in Marathi and Hawaiian, Goodell worked
with individuals who were indigenous to the region and had a good sense of Armeno-Turkish. His close cooperation with scholars and commoners alike reflected his recognition of the importance of producing a Bible translation that would be well received by its audience.
He carefully sought out individuals of varying background to critique his Armeno-Turkish translation. He consulted “individuals of different standing in society” to check whether the style enhanced or harmed the translation’s comprehensibility. Goodell recognized that relying solely upon criticisms by “the best masters” of style in Cosntantinopole would lead to the common people not being able to comprehend the material. Goodell was confident that the Armeno-Turkish translation was well received by people of all walks of life, thus achieving the criterion of readability.
Goodell and all the other Board translators apparently worked from the “Textus Receptus.” They viewed it as the first modern text. Additionally, it was the only full Greek text available to them. All of the Greek helps used by the missionaries were, therefore, based upon the “Textus Receptus.” After consultation with a bishop in Beirut and Panayotes Constanides, Goodell brought to completion an Armeno-Turkish New Testament translation in 1831 before leaving Malt for Constantinople. He therefore
now focused on translating the Old Testament. Two months after he arrived in Constantinople, a great city fire set back Goodell’s translation efforts. As calamities have plagued some translators over the generations, translation aids and manuscripts perished, despite Constantinides’ efforts to salvage material.
Goodell and other missionaries took great pains in the final stages of translation and revision. Goodell turned a room in his home into a study devoted to completing the translation. It was necessary in the room that he compose his mind “like that of the prophet Elisha, and like that of the other inspired writers whose words I was endeavoring to translate; and that my attention should be strictly devoted to this, and to nothing else.” Goodell characterized the labor of completing the Armeno-Turkish Old Testament (and therefore the entire Bible) as “a great and difficult work and it employs nearly all my strength and time.”
Eleven years later, in 1842, the American Bible Society published the Armeno-Turkish in Smyrna. Looking back on his and the labors of other Congregational missionaries, Goodell expressed satisfaction that the Bible had been translated into the vernacular of various Middle Eastern languages related to ancient confessions. “Those churches, indeed, always had the Scriptures, but it was to a very limited extent, and in dead languages, that is, in Ancient Greek, Ancient Armenian, and Syriac.” Goodell made clear that the Armeno-Turkish Old Testament was a translation, not a version or a revision, “for no such has ever existed.”
Phil Corr’s work on the web can be seen at: haystack06.org and fccofcc.com Image of Armenian Crosses before a chapel courtesy Flickr and respective photographer.
