István Lanstyák: On some questions of the 20th and 21st century revisions of the Károli Bible

The paper deals with the 20th and 21st century revisions of Károli Gáspár’s New Testament, from the point of view of linguistics and translation. It is based on a long-term research program, in which the linguistic forms found in the 20th and 21st century revisions of Károli Gáspár’s New Testament are compared with an older Károli revision from the 17th century and a number of new translations and (non-Károli) revisions from the 20th and 21st century. The short-term aim of the research is to find out how the revisers changed the texts to make it fit to the 20th and 21st century Hungarian language norms, how they succeeded in eliminating those features of the revised text, which were or became erroneous or problematic from the point of view of linguistics or translation, actually: how they were able to render the message of the original Greek New Testament to the 20th and 21st century Hungarian reader. The long-term aim of the research is to make a contribution to the research on how classic literary works and translations, which are becoming archaic, can be “saved” by adjusting their language to the contemporary language norm.