History of the Cornish Bible

(rag vershyon Kernewek, gwask omma)

1. In the Period of Traditional Cornish

Of all the Celtic languages, it was only Cornish that did not have its own translation of the Bible. This was a severe handicap:   if the Bible had been translated perhaps the language would not have died. In the period of Traditional Cornish (up to the end of the 18th Century) a very small number of translations appeared:
    Genesis ch. 1 - two versions, one possibly by John Keigwin, the other by John Boson.
    Genesis 3.1-24, Matthew 2.1-20, Matthew 4 by Wella Rowe
and a small number of translations of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. But fortunately, the Middle Cornish Texts are full of Biblical vocabulary, and even short quotations, and this has been a great help to us in this Project.

2. The Revival

In 1904 Henry Jenner published 'A Handbook of the Cornish Language', and this is considered to be the start of the revival. Jenner himself translated Mark 1-4; and after R.M.Nance developed the Unified Cornish orthography Jenner translated John 5.1-14. After that no more Biblical translations appeared until A.S.D.Smith's translation of the Gospel of Mark, published in 1936 (an amended version was published by E.G.R.Hooper in 1960; and a new amendment has been prepared for this Project, brought into line with the Greek text). After a long gap of forty years the Revd D.R.Evans's translation of the Gospel of Matthew followed (that too has been amended according to the Greek for this Project). Ruth, Philemon, Obadiah, Jonah (translated by E.Chirgwin) and 1 Peter (by T.A.Trevanion) followed but have not been published. In 1974 The Bishop of Truro's Advisory Group on Cornish-language Services took the matter in hand, and further translations followed: the Gospel of John (J.Page, 1984), the Gospel of Luke (E.G.R.Hooper, 1989) and The Revelation of John and Eleven Epistles (R.J.Edwards, 1986).

3. The Present Project

In December 1996 the Bishop of Truro's Advisory Group arranged a seminar in St Austell and appointed a Co-ordinator to advance the work; and for the first time it was decided that all translations would be based firmly on the Greek and Hebrew originals. For this reason some of the earlier translations (e.g. Matthew, Mark) have had to be revised, and others (e.g. John, Luke Ruth, Philemon, Obadiah, Jonah) completely retranslated. At the same time it was decided to complete the New Testament and publish it by 2004, the centenary of Jenner's 'Handbook'. That aim was achieved, with its publication by The Cornish Language Board, and its launch in St Petroc's Church, Bodmin, in August 2004. A copy was presented formally to the Archbishop of Canterbury at a ceremony in Truro Cathedral in November 2004. In the case of the Old Testament, there is much work still to be done, but the work continues slowly, and the books are being done more or less in order of priority.

The texts on which the work of this Project is based are:
K.Elliger, W.Rudolph, Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 1990
A.Rahlfs, Septuaginta, 1935
Nestle, Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th edition, 1995