Gospel wins prizes at bookfair
BUDAPEST, Hungary — The Hungarian
Bible Society has won two prizes at a secular bookfair for a Gospel
of Luke, published in co-operation with the Roman Catholic Church.
The book is a polyglot edition of Luke’s Gospel and the idea
behind it, according to Ottó Pecsuk, Assistant at the Bible Society,
is “to show how the biblical languages of Hungarian Protestants
and Catholics existed and developed side by side, permeating and influencing
each other.”
In doing so, he added, the book, which was a unique collaboration,
had crossed the barriers built up during “decades of unfortunate
Protestant-Catholic history.”
Designed for an educated audience of teachers, ministers and university
undergraduates, the polyglot Gospel displays in six parallel columns
the texts of three Protestant and three Catholic translations of Luke,
published between the 16th and the 20th centuries. Its publication marked
the one thousandth anniversary of both Hungarian Christianity and Hungarian
statehood in AD 2000.
People from fellowships which support the Bible Society provided staff
with plenty of positive reaction to the book when talking to them at
Bible Sundays and other special events.
At ecumenical church gatherings Protestants and Catholics were delighted
to be reading the same passages in the Bible of their respective own
traditions from the very same book.
“They felt it was a small but important symbol of the fact that,
in spite of our many differences, the Bible and its message still binds
us together,” said Mr Pecsuk.
He said that a young reformed minister serving in a congregation of
the city of Hódmezövásárhely told him that,
as both a reformed minister and a book-lover, he welcomed the book for
two reasons: first, it contained four invaluable ancient translations
and two modern ones. By opening this one volume he could compare the
different traditions of Bible translation. He had already introduced
it to the local Readers’ Club.
Second, he said, it was proving a wonderful help at ecumenical church
events such as services at Christmas Eve or Easter, where Bible stories
are usually read aloud.
The book also found favour with competition judges at the 8th International
Book Festival, a major secular bookfair held in Budapest last year (2001).
“It was a great surprise and joy when among thousands and thousands
of other books our polyglot Gospel of Luke won not only the first prize
in the Most Attractive Design category but also the Antall József
Commemorative Medal,” Mr Pecsuk said.
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