Front page with the emblem of the Báthory family

Palia de la Orăștie is the first known translation of the Pentateuch in Romanian. The book was printed in 1582 in the town of Orăștie,^[1] then a local center of reformation within the Principality of Transylvania, possibly under the patronage of Stephen Báthory. It was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet and is the earliest known translation, even partial, of the Old Testament in Romanian.

Name and contents

Palia (gr. παλαιά "old") refers to the Old Testament. In the preserved preface it says that all five books of the Pentateuch were printed^[2] but only the first two, Genesis and Exodus, have survived.

Researchers have noted that although the text is introduced as a translation from "Hebrew language, Greek language, and Serbian language" such texts were not directly used and the real sources were Latin and Hungarian language religious books.^[3] The authors used words of Slavonic origin frequently found in other Romanian religious texts (for example: dosadă, izvodi, milcui, proceti, voditură) to appeal to the readers familiar with Old Church Slavonic texts and language.^[3]

Printing

The volume containing 164 pages was translated into Romanian by: Mihai Tordaș (Turdach Mihaly), the protestant bishop of Banat and Hunedoara; Archirie Pamadopleu, protopop of Hunedoara; the pastor Stephen Herczeg; Ephrem Zacham Bar Ephraim, teacher of literature and Biblical languages (Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Latin); and Moisi Pesahiel, pastor. The expenses for translation and printing were covered by the nobleman Ferenc Geszti. The printing was done by the deacons Șerban (the son of the printer Coresi) and Marian.^[1]

References