Anaxios Press Announces the Oxford English Orthodox Bible
March, 2008
Sitka, Alaska - Today a quiet jewel set among a necklace of emerald islands and sapphire seas, Sitka was once one of the happenin'est places of North American Orthodoxy. And it was back in those happy days, seventy years ago last Friday, that a group of seventy men (and one Alaskan Malamute named Kodiak) known as the Oxford English Orthodox Bible Committee began work on the majestic Oxford English Orthodox Bible.
This monumental translation work has now been completed and is ready to go to the publisher, Anaxios Press of Fort Ross, California. The publisher has set the projected date of release for July 1, 2078. The head of the committee, K'alyáan Sitkov, has graciously agreed to grant an interview to our intrepid Onion Dome editor.
YIE: So you're clearly not 70 years old, K'alyáan K'alyáanovich, so I have to assume you've not been working on the translation since it began?
KS: No, I became head of the committee in 1982. Before me my father, K'alyáan, was senior editor from 1951 to 1982, and before him my grandfather, K'alyáan, was editor from the beginning.
YIE: So this has been something of a family enterprise.
KS: Our family doesn't have the successful fishing gene.
YIE: What makes this Bible translation different from any other?
KS: This is the first Bible in English based on the original texts.
YIE: Oh, you mean the ancient Septuagint Old Testament and Textus Receptus New Testament?
KS: No, the 1759 Elizabeth Bible.
YIE: Why is this called the Oxford English Orthodox Bible? Does your committee have some kind of a connection with Oxford University in England?
KS: No, that's just the kind of shirt my grandfather liked to wear.
YIE: So can you read or show us a bit of the Bible, so our Onion Dome readers can see what it's like?
KS: Gladly! How about the first bit of Genesis? Everybody should be familiar with that, so they can compare our translation to what they remember.
YIE: An excellent idea! Let's hear it!
KS: In beginning, Bog made the sky, and mud. The mud was globby and hollow. And Bog said, "May light exist," and then it did.
YIE: That's very -um- distinctive.
KS: We didn't want to be like every other Bible out there. We wanted this to be a Bible with a heritage, with roots, both in Alaska (that's the mud part), and in Russia (that's the Bog part).
YIE: I see. So if your committee finished the translation last week, why is it going to take so long to bring it to release?
KS: This Bible has been a stately enterprise. Some of the greatest minds in Alaskan Orthodoxy have been working on this Bible the better part of a century. Nothing was rushed, there were no shortcuts taken. Each word was carefully and painstakingly translated, then compared to every other place in the Bible where that Slavonic word was translated. If there was no other place in the Bible where that Slavonic word was translated, we painstakingly compared it to some other Slavonic word selected at random.
YIE: So how does this affect how long it...
KS: Would you rush a Bible like this? Would you take the labor of 4,900 man-years and slap it on a press and dash it off in an afternoon? Is that respect?
YIE: Man-years?
KS: So we have asked the publisher to take as much care with setting the book as we have taken translating it.
YIE: Don't they just type it into their computers and the software sets up the pagination and such?
KS: Computers? Computers? Would you put the fruit of 70 years' labor on a computer? A Bible translation is like a fine wine. It must age, it must breathe.
YIE: Surely this translation has done a bit of breathing already?
KS: Okay, all right, I'll admit it. We've got this thing about the number 70.
YIE: Thank you for your candor. And for this interview, K'alyáan K'alyáanovich.
KS: Do you want to pre-order a copy?
YIE: Er, no thanks.
This report was filed by Onion Dome intrepid editor Alex Riggle.
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