T. H. L. Parker on Calvin Translations

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bookslover

Puritan Board Doctor
Last week, I read somewhere on the web (I've forgotten where) the Calvin scholar T. H. L. Parker's opinion of the two best-known translations of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion - the ones by Beveridge and Battles.

Parker's opinion of the translations:

Beveridge - an accurate translation, but in stodgy English
Battles - an inaccurate translation, but in flowing, readable English

I thought that was interesting, somehow.
 
Parker's opinion of the translations:

Beveridge - an accurate translation, but in stodgy English
Battles - an inaccurate translation, but in flowing, readable English

I thought that was interesting, somehow.

Interesting to me as well since my recommended text for a course is the Battles translation while I have the Beveridge one.
 
What is the one used in the in the John T. Neil edition?

That's the Battles translation, published in 1960.

Translator: Ford Lewis Battles (1915-1979)
Editor: John Thomas McNeill (1885-1975)

As a matter of fact, McNeill died 32 years ago this month, aged 89.

Battles also published an Analysis of the Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (Baker, 1980). It was republished by P&R in 2001. It's basically a 421-page outline (in actual outline form) of the entire work.

While I'm at it, an interesting book for studying the origins of Calvin's writings is: The Writings of John Calvin: An Introductory Guide by the Dutch scholar Wulfert de Greef; Dutch original published in 1989, English translation (by Lyle D. Bierma) published by Baker Academic in 1993.
 
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Is anyone ever going to publish the Latin version of the Institutes? I can't find one anywhere!

Or preferably someone should just go all the way and publish at Latin-French-English polyglot! :scholar:
 
David,

There are three critical Latin texts:

That found in Corpus Reformatorum vols 29-30 (or Calvini Opera 1-2) from the 1830s. We have this in our reference section. The CR is also available on CD from the Netherlands for a few hundred $. It's also available in a DOS based CD from the Calvin Theological Seminary library.

You might also look for Joannes Calvinus, Institutio Christianae Religionis, 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1874).

The modern critical edition is:
P. Barth, and W. Niesel, eds. Joannis Calvini Opera Selecta, 5 (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1926).

I would be surprised if none of these show up on book finder etc

rsc
 
:D I just picked up the 2 vol. Allen translation of Calvin's Institutes from Ebay for $15.50 that includes an introduction by Warfield. :banana:

From the McNeil edition

The next English translation of the entire work was that of John Allen (1771-1839):​
Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, translated from
the Latin and collated with the author’s last edition in French.
London: J. Walker, 1813.

Allen was a layman who had become head of a Dissenting Academy at
Hackney. His other writings included an earlier controversial work entitled​
The Fathers, the Reformers, and the Public Formularies of England in
Harmony with Calvin​
. . (1811), and a treatise on modern Judaism (1816).
The greater part of Allen’s translation was made from the Latin and
revised with consultation of the French version; for the remainder he used
both versions alike. Although he dismisses Norton’s translation as “long
antiquated, uncouth, and obscure,” his principle of translation differs little
from that of Norton. He states that he has “aimed at a medium between
servility and looseness and endeavored to follow the style of the original
as far as the respective idioms of the Latin and English would admit.” The
result is a conscientious though not a distinguished translation, marked by
a reserved rendering of Calvin’s vehement passages and vivid metaphors,
but with very few errors seriously affecting the sense of the original.
Allen’s version has had a continuous circulation especially in America,
where it was thirty times republished to 1936. In the edition of 1909,
commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s birth, B. B.
Warfield’s valuable essay, “On the Literary History of Calvin’s

Institutes​
,” f24 was inserted; and in the 1936 edition (timed with reference to
the four hundred years since Calvin’s first edition), Thomas C. Pears, Jr.,
added “An account of the American Editions.” Allen’s text has undergone
several minor revisions at the hands of American editors, notably that of
Joseph Paterson Engles in 1841.

 
I did find Institutio Christianae Religionis, and hopefully Dr. Clark can loan me $1,638.64: http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=dBo8xOJ4e3MxoP3Y,92lQoyvKb4_3521114334_1:43:66 :chained:

David,

There are three critical Latin texts:

That found in Corpus Reformatorum vols 29-30 (or Calvini Opera 1-2) from the 1830s. We have this in our reference section. The CR is also available on CD from the Netherlands for a few hundred $. It's also available in a DOS based CD from the Calvin Theological Seminary library.

You might also look for Joannes Calvinus, Institutio Christianae Religionis, 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1874).

The modern critical edition is:
P. Barth, and W. Niesel, eds. Joannis Calvini Opera Selecta, 5 (Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1926).

I would be surprised if none of these show up on book finder etc

rsc
 
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