Biblical Humanism in Bohemia and Moravia in the 16th Century

Bohemia and Moravia have an outstanding place in the history of biblical translation. Following the Slavonic tradition of Great Moravia and the interest in biblical translation ignited anew by the Church reform in the 15th century, there appeared in the 16th century a number of new translations of the bible or its parts into Czech. Most of them were printed and survived, others are known to us only due to reports. The present volume traces transmission of the biblical text in the 16th century by Czech translators employing humanistic methods. All the new translations analyzed here turn away, consciously and to a various degree, from the preceding redactions of the Czech biblical text based on the Latin Vulgate. In some cases their methodological approach is recorded in grammars which originated in connection with these translations, other translators reflect on the methodology in prefaces to their biblical prints. Given the confessional situation in Bohemia and Moravia of this period, these translations arose in a non-Catholic milieu of the loosely formed Utraquist confession on the one hand and of the Unity of the Brethren influenced by the Swiss reformation movement on the other hand. The volume brings translatological analysis of the works examined, characterization of their Czech language, new findings about the sources for the translation and bio-bibliographical information about the authors of the translations. The breadth and depth of analysis are unprecedented in the scholarship dealing with Czech humanistic translations.