Victor Danielsen

The three Faroese Bible translators: Jákup Dahl , Kristian Osvald Viderø and Victor Danielsen. Faroese postage stamps from 2007.

Victor Danielsen (born March 28, 1894 in Søldarfjørður ; † February 2, 1961 in Fuglafjørður ) was a Faroese missionary of the Brethren movement and the first Bible translator into the Faroese language .

Victor Danielsen contributed significantly to the establishment of the Brethren movement and its current strength in the Faroe Islands after it was introduced by William Gibson Sloan at the end of the 19th century.

Life

Victor Danielsen was born in the settlement of Søldarfjørður on Eysturoy . In 1911 he began studying at the Tórshavn Teachers' College and in 1914 he passed the teacher's exam. In the same year he was employed as a teacher at the schools in Søldarfjørður, Glyvrar and Lamba, but resigned after six months in order to answer the call as a missionary.

In 1916 Danielsen broke away from the established people's church and turned to the free church Brøðrasamkoman (Brothers Movement). In 1920 he married and moved with his wife to Fuglafjørður , where he worked as a preacher and missionary for the Brethren movement.

In 1930 a meeting of the Brethren in Tórshavn decided to turn to Victor Danielsen and ask him to translate Galatians into Faroese. The congregation was so enthusiastic about the result that Danielsen was entrusted with the rest of the New Testament . The translation was published in March 1937, a few weeks before Jacob Dahl's authorized edition, who worked for the Volkskirche independently of Danielsen.

After working on the New Testament, Victor Danielsen went on to translate the Old Testament , and by 1939 he had completed the work based on translations from other modern languages. This differs from Dahl's work, which is a translation of the original Hebrew texts. Because of the Second World War , Danielsen's complete translation of the Bible was not published until 1949, making it the first in his language. The translation by Jacob Dahl and Kristian Osvald Viderø did not appear until 1961.

Victor Danielsen was considered an unusually energetic and productive man. In addition to his translation of the Bible, he composed 27 spiritual songs and translated more than 800. He also wrote two novels with spiritual content. He died in Fuglafjørður at the age of 66.

Web links

• Anker Eli Petersen : Bible translator (for the 2007 stamp issue, public domain, basis of this article)
• Biblian.fo - Danielsen's Bible (Faroese)