Sacred Books in English Translation

Abstract

Sacred texts convey the tenets of religious faith and are central to the world's believers. These texts were originally written in a variety of non-English languages, making them inaccessible to many readers. Wayne Bivens-Tatum offers a carefully selected collection of English translations of the sacred texts fundamental to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judiasm--together comprising approximately 77 percent of the world's practicing believers. Bivens-Tatum is the Philosophy and Religion Librarian at the Princeton University Library, where he provides general and specialized reference and instruction, develops and manages the philosophy and religion collections, and acts as liaison to the departments of Philosophy and Religion. He has graduate degrees in English and Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois. He writes frequently about issues in reference, instruction, collection development, technology, and higher education on his blog, AcademicLibrarian.net. His new book Libraries and the Enlightenment is available from the Library Juice Press. This is his second contribution to the Alert Collector.--Editor The following survey is intended to provide a brief guide to building a representative collection of English translations of books sacred to Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Considering the overwhelming number of sacred books of some religions and the large number of world religions, I have deliberately considered a small number of major world religions and tried to focus on the most significant books within those. For some religions, the choices were easy and for others much more difficult. I have focused on contemporary translations in print, preferably in relatively inexpensive editions easily available from Amazon.com or other booksellers. Most of these books are available in older translations, many of which have been digitized and are available for free through the Internet. However, older translations are often less reliable and less readable than more current translations, and usually do not have notes, commentaries, introductions, and other scholarly additions that are helpful for readers. I assume readers approaching these texts are studying the religions casually and as non-practitioners. Serious students of any of the religions would need to be familiar with the texts in their original languages. Practitioners might need such familiarity with the original languages depending on the religion. Christians rarely have any familiarity with New Testament Greek, for example, while for Muslims the Arabic Qur'an is the only authoritative version. In this article, I do not discuss primary language editions at all. Also, any study of the books in question is best done along with secondary sources such as encyclopedias, commentaries, and histories--none of which I address. Instead, I have gathered information about the texts that is now scattered throughout numerous sources to provide a short guide for librarians selecting books. This is an organized bibliography of (mostly) primary sources in translation for the religions in question with very brief introductions explaining their significance. Below is a recommended list of books by religion, followed by a very short list of the most representative titles and a brief bibliography of works used in compiling this bibliography and which can also serve as further reading about the books listed below. No selection could be perfect, but the collection below should provide a respectable sampling of the sacred books of the selected religions. HINDUISM Hinduism contains a very large number of sacred books spanning centuries. For our purposes, I shall focus on the books most commonly studied in English. The original language of early Hindu sacred books is Sanskrit and the way they should be appreciated is through speech rather than the written word. By talking about English translations of Sanskrit works best appreciated through oral recitation, we are obviously far removed from the appreciation of Hinduism from the inside. …