On Omissions and Substitutions in the Medieval English Translations of the Gospel

Abstract

This paper provides the data on the omissions and substitutions of Latin text fragments made in the Old and Middle English translations of St. John’s Gospel. It aims to explore how frequently and for what reasons one or the other translator, or occasionally both of them, turned to these deviations in the process of rendering, and to find out whether there were some significant differences between the translations concerning these procedures. As the translations were composed over a span of more than 3oo years, some of the evidence certainly reveals changes in the understanding and experiencing of biblical and other terms that occurred over the course of time, as reflected in language. These changes are first and foremost what we wish to discuss in this paper, but other matters will be also considered, such as the authors’ priorities in translation and specific features of their language.