Translation of the Bible to Portuguese

Although the biblical themes have been essential formative substance of the Portuguese culture, it is late the composition in that language of a complete translation of the Bible, in comparison with the other European languages. The beginnings of the written transmission of the sacred text in Portuguese, parallel to its traditional liturgical use in Latin, are related to the progressive social acceptance of the vernacular as a language of culture in the low-medieval period. And even though the official language of the Portuguese monarchy dates back to the end of the thirteenth century, during the reign of D. Dinis, the writer Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos (1851-1925), for example, was able to state categorically that, in the medieval period, "Portuguese literature, in matters of biblical translations, is a poverty Desperate "- a judgment that remains valid, experts say.

The first complete translation of the Bible into Portuguese was composed from the mid-seventeenth century, in specific regions of Southeast Asia under the domination of the Dutch East India Company. The main responsible for its elaboration process by João Ferreira Annes d'Almeida (c. 1628-1691), native of the Kingdom of Portugal, but resident among the Dutch since his youth. A first edition of his New Testament translation was printed in Amsterdam in the year 1681, in the passage that the books of the Old Testament were published from the eighteenth century onwards in Tranquebar and Batavia.

The first partial translation of the Bible that is known is the one of the king, Dinis of Portugal, known like Bible of D. Dinis, that had great circulation during its reign. It is a translation of the first 20 chapters of Genesis, from the Vulgate. There were also translations carried out by the monks of the Alcobaça Monastery, more specifically the book of Acts of the Apostles.

During the reign of D. I John of Portugal, this one ordered that the Bible was translated again in the vernacular. Much of the New Testament and the Psalms, translated by the king himself, were published. His granddaughter, D. Filipa, translated the gospel of French. Bernardo de Alcobaça translated Matthew and Gonçalo Garcia of Santa Maria translated parts of the New Testament.

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Wikipedia