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influenced Bible versions in other languages, as well as contemporary
(non-Jewish) German readers.
See also *German Literature.
Hungarian
In the 15th century the Hussite movement assailed the Latinity
of the Church. Behind the heresy lay, among other social
aims, the wish to make the Bible available to the masses, so
that people might know the world of the Bible even in the oppressive
reality of feudalism, and so become acquainted with
the admonitions of the biblical prophets. The oldest Hungarian
Hussite Bible translations are preserved in the late 15th-century
Vienna codex (Ruth, Esther, Minor Prophets) and the Apor
Codex (Psalms). The Codex of Dobrente contains the translations
of the Song of Songs and Job (1508). The first Catholic
Pentateuch survives in the Jordanszky Codex (1516–19).
The Hungarian reformers translated the Bible in the spirit of
Erasmus and also emphasized its social message. Unlike the
Catholics, who adhered to the Vulgate, Protestant scholars referred
to the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Gáspár Heltai
and four Protestant colleagues translated the entire Bible, but
several books of the Hagiographa did not appear in this edition
(Kolozsvar, 1552–65). The first complete, and most readable,
Bible translation was that of Gáspár Károlyi, a Calvinist
preacher (Vizsoly, 1590); revised by Albert Szenczi Molnár
(1608), it became the official text of the Hungarian Protestant
Church and was the basis of a modern (London) Bible
Society version.
The Reformation enhanced the ecclesiastical importance
of the Psalms, most translations of which were, however,
merely paraphrases. Christian terminology and political
references were inserted into the text, to the detriment of the
original. The first renderings were those of Sztáray (1575), a
more poetical version being that of Balint Balassa (1554–94).
Accumulated accretions were eliminated by Miklós Bogáti
Fazekas, a Unitarian preacher, in his unpublished versified
translation of Psalms (1587). Protestant translations of Samuel,
Kings, and Job were produced by Peter Melius Juhász in
1565–67.
The Bible translations of the 15th and 16th centuries were
stimulated by social motives, while in the 17th century religious
concern proved to be the creative force. The greatest
accomplishment of Hungarian Protestantism at the time was
the Psalterium Ungaricum of A. Molnár (Hanau, 1608). This
was the first complete Hungarian translation of the Psalms in
verse, running to more than 100 editions and it is still extant.
It endured because of the beauty of its style and because of
its faithfulness to the original text. Simon Péchi, the most renowned
member of the Hungarian Szombatos (Sabbatarian)
sect, who had a good command of the Hebrew language, interpreted
the biblical text and his translation adhered strictly
to the original (1624–29). The first complete Hungarian Catholic
Bible was published by the Jesuit György Káldi (Vienna,
1626). Toward the end of the 17th century a new Protestant
Bible translation was prepared by György Csipkés of Komorn
(often called György Komáromi, 1675; published Leiden, 1719),
who was widely known for his Hebrew sermons.
In time Károlyi’s Bible was reworked and his text improved,
while Samuel Kámory produced a new version of
the Bible for Hungarian Protestants (1870). Poets began to be
interested in the Psalms from an aesthetic point of view, the
translations of Benedek Virág and Ferenc Versegi having a
classical mood in antique verse form. More significant translations
of Psalms were those by Károly Kálmán (1883), Sándor
Sik (1923), and Béla Teleki (1929). Two versions of the Song of
Songs were those of Károly Kerényi, which was based on the
Latin text (1941), and István Bernáth (1962).
Although Mór Bloch (Ballagi) produced a Pentateuch in
1840, there was for a long time no demand for a Hungarian
Jewish Bible, since the Jews of Hungary used Yiddish and German.
The first complete Bible translation under Jewish auspices
was that of the Jewish Hungarian Literary Society (IMIT),
published in 1898–1907 (in 4 vols.), with Vilmos Becher, József
Bánóczi, and Samuel Krauss as editors. Earlier partial translations
were József Mannheim’s Psalms (1865); H. Deutsch’s
Pentateuch and haftarot (1888); Mór Stern’s Psalms (1888); Ignác
Füredi’s Joshua and Judges (1893); and the Füredi-Stern
Pentateuch (1894–95). Bernát Frenkel edited and published
the “Holy Scriptures for Family and School” (1924–26) and
the IMIT began publishing a Bible for the young, which remained
incomplete, only the first and second volumes being
printed (1925). During the years 1939–42 the IMIT published a
Hungarian version of the Pentateuch edited by Britain’s chief
rabbi, J.H. Hertz; this was the work of Michael Guttmann, Simon
Hevesi, Samuel Loewinger, and others.
Hungarian Jewish prose versions of the Psalms began
with Mór Rosenthal’s translation (1841); later there were versified
translations by József Kiss, Immanuel Loew, Emil Makai,
and Arnold Kiss. The translations of Attila Gerö (1894) and
Endre Neményi (1917) both displayed an original approach.
Other versions of individual biblical books include Immanuel
Loew’s Song of Songs (1885) and Simon Hevesi’s versified
Lamentations (1916).
See also *Hungarian Literature.
Icelandic
Although there was no Icelandic translation of the Bible during
the Middle Ages, the Stjórn (“Guidance”) was, as a partial
paraphrase of the historical books of the Old Testament, woven
together with some later biblical books (republished 1956).
Following the Reformation, Gudbrandur Thorláksson, bishop
of Hólar, made a complete translation of the Bible (Holum,
1584). Like the Danish Bible of 1550 (Christian II Bible), this
had marked literary power and mainly drew from Luther’s
translation. It was revised by a later bishop of Hólar, Torlak
Skulasson, who referred to the Danish Christian IV edition
of 1644. Bishop Steinn Jonsson’s Icelandic version of H.P. Resen’s
Danish translation was so unsuccessful that the old edition
of Skulasson had to be printed. Headed by the philologist
S. Egilsson, an Icelandic commission later undertook a
632 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3