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12 - The Bible and biblical interpretation in medieval Iceland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

Margaret Clunies Ross
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

The Bible is of fundamental significance in the medieval period in Iceland. Substantial parts of it were translated, in some cases more than once; passages long and short are incorporated into almost all the religious literature that has survived. This chapter will survey both the translated materials and the quotations, commenting where appropriate on the individual authors' approach to their texts.

Although the conversion of Iceland to Christianity took place at the very end of the first millennium, the earliest known translation of the entire Bible into Icelandic is that of Guðbrandur Þorláksson, which dates from 1584. Four decades earlier, Oddur Gottskálksson had translated the New Testament, which Guðbrandur incorporated largely unchanged into his work. But we know of no medieval Icelandic version of either Testament. On the other hand, parts of the Old Testament, and the historical material in the Apocrypha, were translated in the medieval period, and it is highly probable that at any rate the Gospels were too, both individually and in the form of a single harmonized version of the texts of the four Evangelists, or Gospel harmony.

The Old Testament historical material has been edited under the title Stjórn by C. R. Unger (1862): but it is not a homogeneous work, and in fact this material, covering the period from the Creation to the Exile, has come down to us in three separate and distinct versions.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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