Church history readings
- Thread starter Ploutos
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OLOF mostly contains translations by Anglo-Catholics associated with the Oxford Movement, and that bias frequently shows up. ANF/NPNF was translated by Protestants, although in some cases a high-church Anglican bias is still evident. Both series have some unevenness in the quality of the translation of various works, including places where a fairly "loose," almost paraphrastic method was used. In occasionally comparing both versions with the original Latin or Greek, I find I sometimes prefer the renderings of one over the other. But then, that result is probably a reflection of my own limitations and biases...
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Ploutos
Puritan Board Graduate
Does the bias show up primarily in the choice of works to translate, or also in the translation itself?
The translation itself. I can't say I've ever scrutinized the selection of works.
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So, my experience in this is somewhat limited. I've sometimes encountered a passage that seemed obscure or questionable, and so cross-referenced it with the other series, and perhaps then with PL-PG, and discovered those various issues. But I've not kept a record of specific occurrences. And, my memory isn't what it used to be...
Ploutos
Puritan Board Graduate
What is PL-PG?
Patrologia Latina and Patralogia Graeca. Theses are the most accessible collections of Patristic writings in their original languages. Both series were edited by Jacques Paul Migne, a French-Catholic scholar, in the mid-1800's.
CasualWestminsterEnjoyer
Puritan Board Senior
A series so long only the editor has read it all - if even him.
Both series were essentially collections of preexisting writings, and in the case of PG, translations of the works in Latin. I doubt Migne ever read, or ever intended to read them all. His primary effort was in writing thousands of letters to hundreds of institutions and scholars in order to identify and collect the best manuscripts and editions then available. Jean-Baptiste-Franςois Pitra served as a full-time assistant editor. The nuts and bolts of publication of course involved hundreds of people. The end result was in some sense quantity over quality, but making all of these works available on a wide scale for the first time was a remarkable contribution to church scholarship.
CasualWestminsterEnjoyer
Puritan Board Senior
I've read a few volumes, out of the 400, myself. Maybe I'll finish before I die. But probably not.
I've never read an entire volume. More like selected sections of individual works in various volumes. I have no lifetime reading goals with these series...
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