One year on

22 April 2015: It was a bright sunny morning and the taxi driver was keen to impart his tricks for the best route into town. (Look, no traffic lights!) It was also the day I was offered the job on Linguistic DNA.

Before Linguistic DNA, I looked to EEBO-TCP to provide context for shifts in the language of bible translation. It was quantifiable language data, enabling me to work out a loose comparison between the first century of English print (-1569) and the fifty years that followed (-1619) and so sample language change between Continue reading “One year on”

Ruth as deserving stranger

A case study of translation serving ideology in Reformation Europe

Paper to be presented at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in Bruges, 18-20 August, 2016; session 244, “The Vagaries of Translation in the Early Modern World”
(chaired by Paul Arblaster).

ABSTRACT
Did sixteenth-century bible translation and commentary contribute to debate about social issues? What differences occur between vernacular and Latin translations of the Bible, and what is their significance?

Reading the biblical book of Ruth, sixteenth-century commentators address the protagonist’s question, Continue reading “Ruth as deserving stranger”

Early modern pin-up girls

Lessons learned from the Bible’s “virtuous women”

Presented to the Society for Reformation Studies, Westminster College, Cambridge, 5-7 April 2016. (Abstract slightly amended.) The conference theme was “The Bible in the Reformation”.

Seek a virtuous woman in Coverdale’s 1535 Bible and you will find only Ruth. By 1611, the only “virtuous” people in the English Bible are women. Continue reading “Early modern pin-up girls”