Od skrzyni do statku – arka Noego ( תבה – tebāh) w polskich przekładach biblijnych XVI wieku

Authors:

• Andrzej Bernard Sieradzki

Abstract

The article is an analysis of the methods of translation of the hebrew noun tebāh and its Latin counterpart archa/arca in Polish 16th-century biblical texts. The goal of the research is to show to what extent the translation choices in Polish translations were related to the selection of the source text, the translation tradition in a given translation circle and the accepted interpretations and explanations of a specific point in the Bible. The analyses carried out in the article show that the authors of all Polish catholic translations, just as in the case of Biblia królowej Zofii (Queen Sophia’s Bible) and Czech biblical texts, translate archa/arca as korab. This results from Czech influences on biblical translation in Polish texts. Other solutions utilise evangelical translations from the original language, constitutive part of whose are the nouns archa and skrzynia which directly refer to the meaning of the noun from the source text. The state observed in the analysed text shows that the choices of catholic translators were not motivated by the meaning of the noun from the Latin source text, but rather they were related to the possible renditions of Noah’s Ark in theological texts or even its consolidations in broadly-defined Christian culture. However, the meaning of the noun tebāh consolidated in the interpretations of the Hebrew text is referred to by both Polish evangelical translations.