Almeida Bible—Keeping a Heritage Alive: The Historical Path and Current Challenges of a Seventeenth-Century Translation

Abstract

Until the seventeenth century, no Portuguese person or any other individual had either planned or accomplished a full translation of the Bible into Portuguese. As research has shown, there is a significant quantity of partial Bible texts in Portuguese during the late medieval period, but it was João Ferreira de Almeida (ca. 1628–1691) who undertook the “first common translation … of the Sacred Books.” Since the mid-eighteenth century, the “Almeida Bible” has been published in different versions, first in the Far East—Java and India—and, from the early nineteenth century, in Europe and America. This paper focuses on the historical context in which the Bible translation undertaken by João Ferreira de Almeida emerged and the main characteristics of the translation. It also provides a historical analysis of the revisions that the initial texts underwent in their different chronological and geographical environments, and ends with suggestions for a new revision of the European Portuguese version of the Almeida Bible.

Throughout the ages many Bible translations have been produced. Some of them have become obsolete and are no longer used. Since languages are subject to change, there is a constant need for updated translations. But there are a number of classic translations in different languages that are still used today in the Christian tradition. However, it is not the original first editions that are being used. All these versions have been repeatedly revised in spelling, lexicon, and grammar to keep them accessible to later readers. The pace at which languages evolve, not only on the lexical, but also syntactic and even semantic levels, requires new Bible translations for new generations. In a similar way, reflection is needed on the destiny of classic Bible translations, many of which were the first major translations in the language.

Apart from the historical and cultural importance that these classic translations and versions have for Bible scholars and historians, they also have an important spiritual significance for many people in the church, not only for their religious content, but also for the role these translations have in the history of their own communities of faith. Many in the church community have a spiritual relationship with these classic Bible translations, perceiving them as vehicles of sacred history, doctrine, and moral guidance, but also as objects of devotion, used to validate their beliefs.

According to the survey “Bíblia: Avaliação Posicionamento” (Bible: Assessment of Its Status in Portugal), carried out in Portugal in 2008, the Bible is a book of high importance for the country’s population (up to 97 percent of the total respondents). But only 9.7 percent of these say that they have read the complete Bible at least once, while only 7 percent say that they read it daily. Of the respondents, 6.6 percent say they read the Bible at least once a week, although some, in particular Roman Catholic believers, may understand the act of reading the Bible as equivalent to listening to the Bible readings during the liturgy. It is interesting to see that the 7 percent who answered that they read the Bible daily is made up of respondents in the highest age groups, particularly those over sixty-five years old. If that age group is taken separately, daily Bible reading reaches a much larger number of 18.4 percent. Among younger people, the results are very low, with only 2.8 percent for the age group between fifteen and twenty-four years old. This percentage, however, increases significantly when only those who identify themselves as Protestant/Evangelical are counted; then 41 percent of the respondents say that they read the Bible daily and 15.4 percent that they read it at least once a week. Although these data clearly show that a significant lack of interest in reading the Bible persists in Portuguese society at large, the same survey demonstrates that among Protestant/Evangelical readers the interest in the Bible is clearly greater than among the overall population. This in itself serves as motivation to keep their most cherished translation, the Almeida Bible, alive.

The earliest translations in Portuguese

The Bible in Portugal has a long history that covers many centuries. The Bible first reached the current Portuguese geographic and linguistic territory mainly through the Latin Vulgate translation. Even before the establishment of Portugal as an independent nation, there were already Bible codices circulating in the territory. However, the demand for a vernacular translation was not yet very strong. According to Aires Nascimento,

The oldest known copy of the Bible produced in Portugal after its founding dates back to 1145: That year, the monks of St. John of Tarouca (members of the recently founded Cistercian order) received a piece of land as compensation for another property that they had used to pay for a copy of the Bible for the prior of the church of St. Sebastian in Lamego. From the same period, there was the gesture of King Afonso Henriques, who is mentioned in the Livro das Calendas–Necrológio da Catedral de Coimbra [Book of Calendars–Necrology of the Cathedral of Coimbra] as having made an important donation to the costs of producing a New Testament. (Nascimento 2010, 18) ¹

Throughout the late Middle Ages, partial translations of the Bible into Portuguese were produced, which include the translation of the Acts of the Apostles by the Cistercian monks of Alcobaça in 1343, later published in 1505. Father Fortunato St. Boaventura (1777–1844) published this translation again some centuries later, in 1829. ² At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese humanist Damião de Góis (1502–1574) produced a translation of Ecclesiastes, which was published in 1538 in Venice by Stevão (Stefano) Sabio. This edition was lost for more than four and a half centuries, with no mention of it either in published bibliographies or in the listings of works published by its printer Sabio. ³

The first major translation into the Portuguese language was undertaken by João Ferreira Annes d’Almeida (ca. 1628–1691). Almeida was born in Torre de Tavares, the current municipality of Mangualde, in central Portugal. While he was still very young, he traveled to the Far East (ca. 1641) and lived and worked in the Dutch colony of the East Indies.

Almeida initiated the translation of the Bible when he was fourteen years old, while he was in Malacca (1642–1651), in present-day Malaysia. He translated the New Testament, which according to his own information, was redone in the years 1644–1645. It remained only in manuscript. The translation was based on the Latin edition of Theodore Beza (1556–1557), as well as on existing Bible translations in Spanish, French, and Italian, the languages that Almeida knew best (Matos 2002, 25). From Malacca, Almeida went to Batavia (currently Jakarta), where he started his theological studies with ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church. After having completed his academic training and a two-year internship, Almeida was ordained as a Reformed minister, becoming the first Portuguese Protestant pastor. In 1654, he completed a revised version of his translation of the Portuguese New Testament, for which he consulted an edition of the Greek Textus Receptus and the most recent translation of the Dutch Bible, ⁴ Dutch being a language that he had learned in the meantime. After a missionary term in Ceylon and southern India (1656–1663), Almeida returned to Batavia and finally made the text of the New Testament available for publishing (1668).

After some time, he initiated the translation of the Old Testament, a task that he carried out until his death in September 1691. It was also during his last stay in Batavia that the first edition of the New Testament was finally published in Amsterdam (1681). This happened after a complex and lengthy process of revision, in which Dutch Reformed ministers both in Batavia and Amsterdam were involved. The translation of the Old Testament was later completed by his successor in church leadership in Batavia, the Dutch minister Jacobus op den Akker (1647–1731). It was only published in the following century, the first volume in 1748 and the second in 1753, more than six decades after the death of Almeida. ⁵

The emergence of the Almeida Bible

The Almeida Bible came into existence in a very peculiar context, quite distinct from those of other early Protestant translations in European languages. Unlike the translations in, for example, German (1522/1534), French (1535), English (1560), or Spanish (1569/1602), the Portuguese Bible was born about a century later in a colonial context, outside the original territory of the language. It was not so much intended for native Portuguese speakers as for audiences who did not have Portuguese as their mother tongue.

Luís Menezes Fernandes highlights three historical facts that help to clarify the unique context in which the Almeida Bible emerged: first, the Protestant principle of sola scriptura; second, the European maritime expansion, with particular emphasis on the Portuguese and Dutch expansions and the interactions between these colonial powers; and third, the polemic environment of the Reformation movement (Fernandes 2016, 19). Although the first and third may be linked also to other Protestant Bible translations of that period, the missionary environment in which Almeida carried out his work made his project unique compared to similar undertakings in other languages. Fernandes argues as follows:

Another development that clearly contributed to the historical formation of this Bible translation is the European maritime and commercial expansion, particularly by the Portuguese and the Dutch. Due to Portugal’s strict adherence to the guidelines established by the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent, which was held in the mid-sixteenth century, there was no possibility of spreading the Protestant principle of sola scriptura in Portuguese society in Europe. This explains, at least in part, why Portugal, compared to other European countries, had its own Protestant version rather late. It was far more likely, therefore, that a literal [= Protestant] Portuguese translation of the Bible would be produced in regions where the language was actively used, but where there was no Portuguese state apparatus in control. From the seventeenth century onwards this was made possible by the Dutch colonial expansion [and its spread of the Reformed Church], which also began to reach regions where the Portuguese language had already taken root since the previous century. Historically speaking, it is essential to understand Almeida’s Bible translation project as a result of these particular conditions. (Fernandes 2016, 19)

In his introduction to the translation from Spanish of Differença da Christandade, ⁶ Almeida expressed his distress about the relatively late completion of a translation of Holy Scripture in Portuguese. He states, “Can it be possible that already today, throughout our Europe, even the Smallest Nation has already printed all the Sacred Scripture in its own Mother Tongue, and that only the Portuguese do not have in print a single Gospel?” (Matos 2002, 8–9). Aires Nascimento expresses this as follows: “The Portuguese translation of the Bible is late, but that does not mean that the Bible is absent from our culture” (Nascimento 2010, 9).

The translation method of the Almeida Bible

The Almeida Bible is a formal-equivalent translation, as were many other translations of the time. In these translations, there is, by definition, a greater fidelity to the form, although in the Almeida Bible meaning has certainly not been ignored. According to João Soares Carvalho,

Almeida was … one of the most advanced translators, not only because of his deep knowledge of the languages in which the texts of the Bible were written, but also because he knew how to take advantage of the positive and negative experiences of translations of the sacred texts to which he had access. (Carvalho 1993, 16)

Yet experts are not in agreement as to whether Ferreira de Almeida had a thorough knowledge of the original languages in which the sacred texts were written. On the one hand, Jairo Cavalcante Filho asserts that the Portuguese translator knew both Greek and Hebrew, since the translation would not have been authorised by the Reformed Dutch Church to which he belonged if he had not known these languages (Cavalcante Filho, 2013, 33). Edgar Hallock and Jan Swellengrebel take a more moderate position and distinguish between three periods in Almeida’s translation work: In the first (1644–1645) and second (1651–1655) periods, Almeida did not yet know the original languages, but in the third period (1668–1676) he knew at least Biblical Greek (Hallock and Swellengrebel 2000, 92–93). A third position is taken by Herculano Alves, who emphasises Almeida’s limited knowledge of biblical languages. At the very least, according to Alves, “we cannot prove with convincing arguments that Almeida translated the Old Testament directly from Hebrew, a language of which he would have known very little (if he knew anything). As for Greek, it seems that he understood it, and Latin even better” (Alves 2007, 518).

The revisions of the Almeida Bible in the East in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

For a Bible translation that is more than three centuries old, it is normal that several revisions have been undertaken since the first publication of its New Testament in 1681. ⁷ The first revision of the text of the New Testament was published in 1693, several decades before the completion of the Old Testament. Although this revision was printed after Almeida’s death, the editors sought to incorporate Almeida’s corrections of some of the “errors” that he had ascribed to the Dutch reviewers of the 1681 edition. However, this revised text was considered of inferior quality compared to the 1681 edition, perhaps because not all of Almeida’s suggested changes, handwritten by him in the version to which he added an Advertência (Warning) in 1683, were equally carefully considered (Fernandes 2016, 92–93).

Other revised editions of the New Testament, sponsored by foreign missionary organisations active in the Far East territories, would follow. These include a revision of 1712, published in Amsterdam and financed by the mission of the Danish Lutheran Church (Alves 2007, 295–98); a revision of 1760, containing only the first part of the New Testament, published in Tranquebar in India and also financed by the Danish Lutheran Church (Alves 2007, 310–11); a revision of 1765, again printed in Tranquebar and sponsored by the Danish Lutheran Church (Alves 2007, 312–13); and, finally, a revision of 1773, published in Batavia under the auspices of the Dutch Reformed Church (Alves 2007, 298–99) and the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or Dutch East India Company. The publication of the Old Testament was completed with the edition of its second volume in 1753 (the first volume had appeared in 1748), printed in Batavia and also sponsored by the VOC (Alves 2007, 320–23). Other (partial) editions of the Old Testament were printed in Tranquebar from 1738 until the end of the eighteenth century, also sponsored by the mission of the Danish Lutheran Church (Fernandes 2016, 101–6). All this shows how the emergence of the Almeida Bible was linked to the Far East, a region where Portuguese expanded as a lingua franca between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, rather than to European Portugal. As David Lopes points out, “the Portuguese language was used for three centuries by the maritime populations of much of the East” (Lopes 1969, ix). He also mentions that, until 1808 in the Protestant church in Batavia, church services were held in Portuguese, and that even by 1906, “Dutch ministers still had to know the Portuguese language in the territories of the East India Company” (Lopes 1969, 88).

The revisions of the Almeida Bible in the West in the nineteenth century

That the Almeida Bible is now the most published and most widely disseminated work in the Portuguese language (Alves 2007, 891) is not so much the result of its earlier history in the Far East, but much more the result of the work of the Bible Society movement, especially that of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS).

It is somewhat ironic that it was only quite late that the Almeida Bible moved from the Far East, where it was born, to what would be expected as its birthplace, Portugal, in Western Europe. As Eduardo Moreira notes,

In the year 1809, when the light of our language and culture faded in the East after three centuries of prestige, and when the old Evangelical Portuguese church disappeared from the island of Java … a correspondent of the London Bible Society organised the first distribution of the [Portuguese] New Testament on the island of Madeira. (Moreira 1958, 99)

The process of consolidation of the Almeida Bible as the preferred sacred text of the Portuguese-speaking Protestant communities, not only in Portugal, but also in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, and other Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, was not a straightforward one. There never was an “authorised” or official version of the Bible in Portuguese, similar, for example, to the King James Version (1611) in the English-speaking world. This was because of the specific historical-religious situation in Portugal (for example, the emergence of the first Protestant communities in Portugal) and the legal position of the Bible Society movement when BFBS started to distribute Bible editions in Portugal.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Portugal was caught in a rivalry between two major powers in Europe, England and France. After three consecutive invasions by Napoleon’s armies in the years 1807–1810, the Portuguese crown asked for protection from the British armies, who came to fight alongside the Portuguese. It was under these circumstances that BFBS, which had just been established in 1804, saw an opportunity to provide Portuguese readers with the Bible. Therefore, in 1808 the BFBS Bible Translations Committee decided to choose for this purpose the translation of João Ferreira de Almeida, at the expense of the recently completed translation by the Roman Catholic priest António Pereira de Figueiredo (1725–1797). The argument used to support this decision was that the Protestant translation of the New Testament—the only part of the Almeida Bible that the Committee was aware of—had been done on the basis of the Greek text, while Figueiredo’s translation of both the Old and New Testaments was done on the basis of the Latin Vulgate. However, the decision was challenged by a Portuguese citizen residing in England, identified as “Mr. Da Costa,” who was hired by the Committee to read the proofs. He spoke out in favour of Figueiredo’s complete Bible text. The Translations Committee reviewed the situation, but on July 21, 1808, confirmed that BFBS would publish the New Testament translated by Almeida after it was proofread by Uzielli, an Italian. ⁸

In the course of time, however, BFBS understood that in order to serve the Portuguese audience of mostly Roman Catholic believers adequately, it would need to publish and distribute Figueiredo’s translation. This happened for the first time in 1818 (Leite and Cavaco 2010, 190–91). Even the Protestant communities that were established in Portugal from the second half of the 1830s not only preferred the Catholic translation for evangelisation purposes, but also used it in their own services. According to Rita Mendonça Leite, Almeida’s translation revealed “on the one hand, that, in the shape in which it was, it was indeed a ‘useless’ work, but that, on the other hand, the obsolete character of its spelling and language was responsible for the fact that few were willing to use it” (Leite 2016, 536). It was only in the 1950s, after a slow process of consolidation, that the Almeida Bible gained primacy among the Portuguese Protestant communities. This was confirmed by the fact that the Figueiredo translation ceased to be published by the Bible Society in the mid-1960s. We may agree with Mendonça Leite when she affirms that,

contrary to the collective memory of Portuguese Protestantism, and to what the Bible Society sought to affirm, and to what is still axiomatic for many in the modern Bible translation movement, the version of João Ferreira de Almeida was not a privileged instrument either in its origins or in the process of the establishment and consolidation of the activity of the Bible Society in Portugal. (Leite 2016, 574)

The process of consolidation of Almeida’s Bible translation in Portugal was slow. The first complete Almeida Bible, that is, the Old Testament and the New Testament together in one volume, was printed and published in London by BFBS in 1819 (Darlow and Moule 1911, 1242). It would take another twenty years before the Scriptures were printed and published in Portugal, in an edition of Almeida’s New Testament, printed in the city of Porto in 1840. The BFBS agent in Porto, Edward Whiteley, who was also the chaplain of the Anglican community, was in charge of revising the text of the 1693 edition. He “corrected its orthography, and replaced certain obsolete words by modern equivalent terms” (Darlow and Moule 1911, 1244). This edition was named Revista e Emendada (Revised and Emended; see Darlow and Moule 1911, 1244).

Only thirty-five years after this second edition, BFBS again became interested in Almeida’s text, although at the same time two different revision projects were carried out by other entities. The first was of the full text of the Almeida Bible and was sponsored by the Trinitarian Bible Society (TBS), based in London, which had already in 1837 requested the services of Thomas Boys (1792–1880) for this purpose. He was an Anglican minister with skills in biblical languages, in particular Hebrew, and with some knowledge of Portuguese that he had acquired when he served in Portugal during the Peninsular War (1807–1814) as a chaplain in the English army under General Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington. For his revision work Boys resided in Portugal for two years. He had the help of at least two native Portuguese speakers (Alves 2007, 364). This edition, which would come to be known as Revista e Reformada (Revised and Reformed), was completed in 1847 (Darlow and Moule 1911, 1244). On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, another revision of the New Testament of the Almeida Bible was undertaken by the American Bible Society (ABS). This work was carried out by Portuguese Presbyterian pastor António de Matos (1822–1891), who had become a Protestant while living on the island of Madeira in 1845. ⁹ This edition of the New Testament was published for the first time in 1857 (Darlow and Moule 1911, 1245–46).

In 1869 BFBS undertook a new revision of the Almeida Bible. First, a trial edition of the book of Genesis was published, the revision done by Manuel Soares. Once it was determined that this trial edition was well received by readers, the entire Bible was revised by Soares, who worked in cooperation with R. B. Girdlestone, the BFBS editorial superintendent. The book of Psalms was printed in 1873. In 1875 the complete Bible was published under the name Nova Edição Revista e Correta (New Revised and Correct Edition; see Darlow and Moule 1911, 1242). The final revision in the nineteenth century on Portuguese territory is known as the Edição Revista e Corrigida (Revised and Corrected Edition), published in 1898. Interestingly enough, the available sources are unclear about the exact origins and developments of this edition, and so nothing definite can be said about the principles that guided the revision. ¹⁰

A new revision of the Almeida Bible?

So far, we have seen that the history of the Almeida Bible is not as straightforward as that of other classic Bible translations. It is clear, though, that it has now gained a prominent place in most Protestant communities, both in Portugal and in other Portuguese-speaking countries. Furthermore, we have seen that this Bible translation, despite its long-standing tradition, saw its last revision in Portugal in 1898—more than 120 years ago. Despite a few orthographic updates, carried out in 1940, 1968, 2001, and 2011, the text that is being printed and distributed today by the Bible Society of Portugal is basically the same as the one prepared at the end of the nineteenth century. Portugal stands in sharp contrast to Brazil, where, especially from the second half of the twentieth century, very diverse editions and revisions of the Almeida Bible have been published, not only by the Bible Society of Brazil but also by others. ¹¹ Modern versions of the Almeida Bible are therefore available, but due to the significant linguistic differences—both lexical and syntactic—between the forms of Portuguese language spoken in Portugal and in Brazil, it is obvious that there is a great need for a revision of the Almeida Bible in Portugal in order to keep the text alive for future generations.

Such a revision should ideally be prepared on the basis of the latest edition of the Revised and Corrected Edition of the Bible Society of Portugal. ¹² Ideally, the older editions from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, published in Amsterdam, Batavia, and Tranquebar (all discussed above) should be consulted as well. Further comparisons should be made with the nineteenth-century editions (those of BFBS, TBS, and ABS), as well as the revisions of the second half of the twentieth century prepared in Brazil (see note 10). The text of the Almeida Bible should of course also be compared with the latest Hebrew and Greek text editions: for the Old Testament, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and, where possible, the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, and for the New Testament, the UBS Greek New Testament (5th edition) and the Nestle–Aland Novum Testamentum Graece (28th edition). It is also important for the revision work to use modern translations and revisions in other languages, for example in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Dutch.

However, at the same time, it is assumed that it is probably best that the formal and literal nature of this translation, as well as all its other fundamental characteristics, be maintained. The revisers should bear in mind that this Bible text continues to be the most used in the religious services of Protestant churches, both in Portugal and in most Portuguese-speaking countries. Ideally, the versification and pericopes should be kept the same. It would be advisable to preserve as many translation decisions that over the decades and even centuries have become traditional in the liturgy and in the homiletical and teaching practices of the Protestant communities. The same can be said about exegetical and liturgical key terms (such as propitiation, justification, reconciliation, redemption, regeneration), and about Hebraisms and Graecisms that have been explicitly maintained in previous revisions (such as hallelujah, amen, “truly, truly”).

The name of God—YHWH—in the Old Testament should be rendered with the word Senhor “Lord” (printed in small caps). This rendering follows the original choice of Ferreira de Almeida. This is also in line with many other, more modern Bible translations. As for the use of personal pronouns, the general pattern of the previous revisions must be kept, with the second person singular referring to individual people, including God, and the second person plural for groups. As far as the word order is concerned—subject, verb, complements—it would be good if the choices of Ferreira de Almeida could be respected as much as possible, especially in those places when there is a certain cadence or rhetorical effect that might be lost when the word order is changed. In the narrative texts of the Old Testament, it would be good for coordinated phrases to be maintained, following the original Hebrew narrative style, although subordinate phrases might be chosen when it is essential to the fluency of the Portuguese language.

Words that have become old fashioned or even obsolete in the current use of Portuguese should be avoided. Furthermore, there are phrases in the original translation that try to imitate Hebrew or Greek alliteration or assonance. However, these have become unclear in meaning and should be changed, focusing more on content than form. Although not very usual in current Portuguese, proclisis (e.g., me deste, me fizeste), ¹³ mesoclisis (e.g., trá-lo-á, dir-lhe-á), ¹⁴ and enclisis (e.g., lembro-me, veste-as) ¹⁵ should perhaps be maintained, because they characterise the seventeenth-century literary product of Almeida.

The revision work should include detailed studies of the accuracy of the renderings of flora and fauna terminology and of geographical names. When needed, weights and measures should be explained in footnotes.

A revision would also give the opportunity for a thorough check of the parallel passages in the Bible, that is, those in the Old Testament (e.g., between the books of Samuel/Kings and Chronicles), in the New Testament (the Synoptic parallels), and between the Old and New Testaments (the quotations of the Old Testament in the New).

Globally speaking, inclusive language should be applied, as long as the main characteristics of the text are not changed.

Where the text includes extraordinarily long sentences, these should be replaced by shorter ones. The excessive use of semicolons to separate sentences should be reduced to an acceptable minimum. It is also advisable to moderate the use of the conjunction “and,” particularly when it appears at the beginning of a verse.

The different literary levels and the literary style of each individual book of the Bible should be taken into consideration, although it is also important to keep an eye on the biblical text as a whole.

Finally, of course, errors such as typos and other inaccuracies should be corrected.

Final remarks

In this paper, I have tried to show that the Almeida Bible in Portugal is ready for a new revision. We have seen that the text was revised at several points in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, but that after 1898 nothing has been done to adapt it to modern standards. It is my plea that if we want to keep this heritage alive for the many communities in Portugal who use it, revision is imperative.