Euthymius Zigabenus’ Commentary on the Epistles has never been translated into English, so I aim to create the first ever English translation and publish it.
Contents
Progress
Translation Progress Report
I have published an interactive Translation Progress Report to help readers visually track my progress.
Summary of the Progress of the Translation
Below is a table showing both the breakdown of each of the commentaries against the entire Commentary of the Epistles and the general status of the translation of each.
When I start translating a new commentary, I change the status below from “Not started” to “In progress”. When I complete the first rough translation, I change the status below from “In progress” to “Editing.” A status of “Editing” means that I still need to edit the translation and do any of the following: tackle certain parts of the Greek that I struggled with initially, or modify the English to make it sound more natural, or research/translate Nikiforos Kalogeras‘ footnotes in his edition and incorporate them into my translation. Once a given translation has been completely edited, I will change the status to “Completed,” which means that the translation is ready for publication.
| Epistle | Word Count | % of Total | Status |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Romans | 43,414 | 15.57% | Editing |
| Paul’s 1st Epistle to the Corinthians | 42,413 | 15.21% | In Progress |
| Paul’s 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians | 28,064 | 10.06% | Not started |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians | 15,185 | 5.44% | Editing |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians | 15,383 | 5.52% | Not started |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians | 9,587 | 3.44% | Not started |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians | 10,102 | 3.62% | Not started |
| Paul’s 1st Epistle to the Thessalonians | 7,310 | 2.62% | Not started |
| Paul’s 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians | 4,038 | 1.45% | Not started |
| Paul’s 1st Epistle to Timothy | 11,209 | 4.02% | Not started |
| Paul’s 2nd Epistle to Timothy | 7,431 | 2.66% | Not started |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Titus | 4,866 | 1.74% | Not started |
| Paul’s Epistle to Philemon | 1,488 | 0.53% | Not started |
| Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews | 31,184 | 11.18% | Not started |
| James’ Universal Epistle | 11,325 | 4.06% | Not started |
| Peter’s 1st Universal Epistle | 12,085 | 4.33% | Not started |
| Peter’s 2nd Universal Epistle | 5,372 | 1.93% | Not started |
| John’s 1st Universal Epistle | 12,198 | 4.37% | Not started |
| John’s 2nd Universal Epistle | 720 | 0.26% | Not started |
| John’s 3rd Universal Epistle | 876 | 0.31% | Not started |
| Jude’s Universal Epistle | 4,632 | 1.66% | Not started |
| Total | 278,882 | 100.00% | In progress |
Process
Preface
The most logical approach would have been to first create the complete critical edition and then translate that edition into English, but I decided against that for a few reasons:
- Creating the critical edition is going to be more difficult for me than translating the commentary from Greek to English.
- I believe that the edition of Nikiforos Kalogeras is faithful enough to the original to serve as an excellent source for the first English translation.
- I wanted to first work towards something that a larger audience would care about; more people will get something out of the English translation than out of a critical edition of the manuscripts.
That being said, once I have completed the translation, edited it, and published it, I would like to return to working on the critical edition, finish that, and then perhaps publish a 2nd edition to my translation, making modifications where the critical edition differs from Kalogeras’ edition. That is a good end goal for this project, but I am not concerning myself with it yet. First I need to finish the translation, and then I can worry about the critical edition.
Daily Process
The approach that I had taken in this project from its inception until the middle of September, 2022, was to translate at least 400 words of the Greek each day. That is how my detailed schedule above is set up.
I came up with the number 400 by averaging how many words I was able to translate each day without spending an unreasonable amount of time and effort. I was careful of setting the limit low enough so that I could accomplish it each day without risking burnout.
That number has now decreased from 400 to 200 words, given the fact that my parental leave ended and I had to return to work. See here for a short post on that.
I use a number of tools in my translation (outside of my Ancient Greek textbooks for reviewing very basic aspects of grammar that I need to brush up on):
- Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) – (NOTE: I no longer use this, but I will leave it on here in case people benefit from this) The text from the edition of Kalogeras (1887) is available here online. I use this site for my word count, so that I can easily see how close I am to achieving my daily goal or how much I surpass it on a given day. This tool is also extremely useful, because with the click of the mouse on any word, you have at your disposable suggestions about the possible morphological information of that exact word and multiple dictionaries with definitions for the lemma. It makes translating very fast. The two big downsides with this is tool are 1) the cost ($140 USD a year) and 2) the stringent usage limits. Your account is very susceptible to being suspended if you make too many requests by scrolling through pages or clicking on too many words/links. This has frustrated me enough to wash my hands of the TLG.
- Liddell Scott Jones Ancient Greek Lexicon (LSJ) – An online version of the LSJ. I use this to look up my words. It is more difficult than using the TLG, because I have to come up with the lemma on my own, but I find that I learn Greek better this way. I prefer using the online LSJ to the TLG, because it too has multiple dictionaries available when you look up a given word, but the speed of glossing with the TLG is still really good.
- A Greek Grammar for Colleges by Herbert Weir Smyth – This is one of the standard Ancient Greek grammars. I use the physical book though, not this online one. I consult it frequently when I don’t understand a certain grammatical or syntactic construction.
- The Greek Particles by J. D. Denniston – This book is a staple in the understanding of Greek particles. It is not the most recent work on the subject (see here for other works), but it is good enough for me and for the Greek that I am tackling.
- Lexigram – This is a very useful website for looking up words. You can type in almost any inflected form of any word in Ancient or Modern Greek and it will give you the lemma and all the inflection tables for the word. I use it in tandem with the LSJ above by looking up, for example, a conjugated verb in Lexigram to get the lemma, and then looking up the lemma in the LSJ for the definitions. It is not free, but it is cheap; I paid $11.41 CAD for a year’s subscription. It is very worth the money.
Zigabenus Epistles 