Bible translations in Norway date back to the late 13th century. Since the first spread of Christianity in Norway, numerous translations of the Bible have been published. Translations have appeared in several of the official languages that Norway has had throughout its history, including editions in Old Norse, Danish, and both current standard forms Nynorsk and Bokmål.

Old Norwegian "Stjórn" At the end of the 13th century, some parts of the Old Testament were translated into Old Norse. This rendering of the text became known as "Stjórn", meaning "Government," because it was most likely done at the court of King Haakon V. It serves as more of a paraphrase of the Bible than as a strict translation.

The text was published in Norway by C. R. Unger in 1862, and the edition influenced later translations of the Bible into Norwegian. Only two manuscripts of the text are known today, neither in Old Norse, but rather having been themselves translated into the Icelandic.Dagfinn Rian, p. 22

Danish editions 1524-1873

In 1524, the exiled King Christian II of Denmark-Norway ordered the publication of the first Danish-language translation of the New Testament. It was given a full title which can be translated as "This is the New Testament in Danish directly from the Latin version," and is often referred to today as the New Testament of King Christian II. The inspiration to publish this translation came from the king's visit to Wittenberg, Germany, a focal point of the Protestant Reformation. The translation work was done by Christiern Winter, Hans Mikkelsen, and Henrik Smith, while Melchior Lotter financed the printing. The translation was based on Erasmus of Rotterdam's Latin Bible translation of 1516 for the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, and on Martin Luther's German New Testament for the rest.

After publication, the book was subject to harsh criticism. Its Danish was not very fluent, and there was an attack in the preface on King Frederick I (who had previously deposed King Christian II). There was also a petition against the Catholic Church in Denmark, which led to the eventual banning of this translation in Denmark. Only about 40 copies are known to exist today.

Christiern Pedersen's New Testament was a complete translation into Danish, published in Antwerp in 1529. Pedersen used the Vulgate as a starting point, but was also inspired by Luther's German translation of the New Testament. Pedersen was a Reformist Catholic who considered it important for the translation to be in the vernacular; the language used was quite free and accessible, close to everyday vernacular. A revised edition was published in 1531.

Christian III's Bible and versions based on this

Christian III's Bible was the first full Danish-language Bible translation, published in 1550. It was commissioned by King Christian III. A commission of theologians compiled this first 1550 edition, largely based on Luther's complete German-language translation of the Bible published five years earlier in 1545. It was also influenced by: Luther's Low German translation of 1534; the Swedish Bible translation named after Gustav Vasa; Pedersen's translations of the New Testament (1529), Psalms (1531) and Genesis (1535); and on two complete, unpublished translations of the Bible, one by Pedersen, and one by Hans Tausen from 1543. A combined emphasis on fluency of the language employed and a translation close to the original texts yielded a result which is considered very good.Dagfinn Rian p. 13 The Bible was illustrated, and also contained some cross-references. The price of the book was 5 daler, equivalent in price to a good bull or thirty barrels of rye. About 3000 copies were printed, of which 96 came to Norway. The language used in this translation exhibited German influence, but because this book significantly improved access to the Biblical literature for everyday Danes and Norwegians, editions based on this became the dominant Bibles in Denmark and Norway for much of the Reformation era, earning the edition the common name, "The Reformation Bible."

A new edition of the New Testament was published in 1558. This was largely a reprinting of the 1550 edition, but also included Martin Luther's preface to the different texts and expanded the notes.

The Bible of Frederick II was published by King Frederick II in 1589. It was a slightly revised version of the 1550 edition, which contained the revised New Testament translation that was released in 1558, and added Luther's prefaces to the Old Testament, just as they had been added to the New Testament. Luther's chapter summaries and a small Bible dictionary were also included. This edition showed less German language influence than its predecessor, and contained many corrections of translation and typography.

Christian IV's Bible, related to King Christian IV, was published in 1633. It was a revision of the 1589 translation featuring simpler language, done by Hans Poulsen Resen. (See below)

Frederik III's House and Travel-Bible was published in 1670 in a smaller, more convenient format than previous editions. It was based primarily on Luther's 1545 translation, as well as on the Danish translations from 1589 and 1633. The translation was popular, and appeared in several editions, the last in 1802.

Resen's Bible and versions based on this

A new family of translations, which came to assume a very important position in the Danish-Norwegian biblical tradition, is named after professor of theology Hans Poulsen Resen. Initially, he only meant to revise the translation from 1589, but he eventually went on to translate the Bible wholesale from the original texts. His first translation was published in 1607 and was very accurate, but it was written in an unnatural and difficult language, as he followed the original texts with painstaking accuracy (for example, Resen put Danish words needed for comprehension in parentheses if they were not present in the original text.) This edition was the first Danish-Norwegian translation to include the traditional subdivision into verses. It also contained a lot of explanations of words and interpretations in the margins; altogether, this led to a messy typography.

Resen was mostly interested in the basic text, and the language of the translation has been referred to as "Hebrew-Danish" or "Greek-Danish".Dagfinn Rian, p. 14 The translation received praise in its day for its accuracy, but has been criticized in retrospect for its lack of Danish fluency. Danish translator Tomas Skat Rørdam said of Resen "of all Denmark's renowned men, there has never been anyone who has written such a barbarically struggled Danish as he [did]"quote reproduced in Dagfinn Rian p. 15

The Resen-Svaningske Bible was published in 1647 and is a revision of Resen's Bible from 1607. The revision was made by Hans Swan, and has been named after both translators. This translation became the official Church Bible of the Danish-Norwegian church.

The Resen-Svaningske Bible in the revised edition was published in 1740. This version was used as the basis for later printings, and was the dominant translation in Norway until the purely Norwegian translations were made. The Norwegian Bible Society published revised versions of it in 1820 and 1830 and one version of it was edited and published by Olaus Nielsen in 1853.

Norwegian Bible Society Bibles in Danish The Norwegian Bible Society was founded in 1816 and saw as its main task the publication of Bibles for the Norwegian market, focusing primarily on revisions of the Danish versions already in existence. In 1820 it released its first volume, a revised edition of the New Testament. This became known as "the revision of 1819," and it was noteworthy for marking in brackets all of the text that was probably not derived from original sources. It also diverges from the Textus Receptus on some points, a choice that was rare at the time. This tradition was continued in an edition published in 1830, where even greater parts of the text were enclosed in brackets, but eventually fell out of favor; in the New Testament edition published in 1848, all traces of textual criticism were removed.

The British and Foreign Bible Society, which at that time also had operations in Norway, published two Bible versions for Norwegian distribution in 1829 and 1834. These differed from the other contemporary Danish and Norwegian Bibles in omitting the Apocrypha. For a long time the British and Foreign Bible Society sold more Bibles in Norway than the Norwegian Bible Society.

The Norwegian Bible of the Norwegian Bible Society was published in 1854, and was the first version of the Bible to be produced in Norway. The New Testament was based on a version of "the Resen-Svaningske", published in 1830, while the Old Testament is based on a Danish version of the "Resen-Svaningske" from 1740. The British and Foreign Bible Society had published an edition similar to the Norwegian Bible Society one. Despite its name, it was in the Danish language, and was very popular in Denmark until a new Danish revision was made in 1871.

The revision of Skaar was a New Testament version published in 1873. The work was revised by the priest Johannes Nilssøn Skaar. This version is known for a strongly Norwegianized language, taking it in a more idiomatic direction and focusing on the importance of the meaning of the original rather than the words themselves.

Other versions The Picture-Bible of the Norwegian People, Containing the Canonical Books of the Holy Scripture was published privately in Christiania in 1840. This Bible was illustrated with 100 photographs, and was mainly based on the Reformation Bible (Christian III's Bible).

Norwegian editions 1873-2011 The first part of the Bible to be published in Norwegian was Apocrypha. These books "fell out" of canon during the Reformation, but are still held high by most Protestant churches. (In the Catholic Church the books are considered fully canon.) The Norwegian language translation of the Apocrypha appeared in 1873, and was a test translation, a revision of a translation from the 1850s that was never published. A new revision was released by the Society in 1887. In 1891 a translation was published of the Old Testament with the Apocrypha, the first official Norwegian-language version of these books from the Bible Society. A revision was then published in 1940, before the next translation was in 1988. In 1994 the Bible Society published a new edition with both the apocryphal and the canonical writings in Norwegian.

Landsmål/Nynorsk