ABSTRACT
The Bible (from the Greek biblia, meaning books) epitomizes complexity. It was recorded mainly in Hebrew and Greek, with a few passages in Aramaic, over the period of more than a thousand years – roughly, between the eleventh century bce and second century ce – by multiple authors living in diverse cultural, religious and sociopolitical settings. Biblical writings represent a wealth of genres: from law to genealogy, historical epic, prophecy, proverbs, epistles and apocalypse. As a collection of ancient writings, the Bible confronts its translators with a series of interpretive decisions even before the translation process begins. Possibly the most fundamental question is what counts as the Bible. The abundance of unique closely connected biblical witnesses, resulting from a complex history of textual transmission, significantly problematizes the idea of a single source text, and even textuality itself. Ancient Jewish religious practices involving the Bible problematize a clear-cut distinction between written translation and oral interpreting.
