The purpose of this paper is not to develop a new theory or method of Greek transliteration but rather it is an attempt to establish a ‘policy’ for transcription that will provide a realistic alternative to the New Korean Revised Version (hereafter NKRV). The principle of revising the transcription of proper names in the NKRV should be ‘minimal revision,’ despite the purpose of improving cultural disparity or difficulties in social communication.
There has never been a single clear set of transcription principles for the New Korean Revised Version, so it may seem like the NKRV is an unprincipled rendering of a Greek phonetic system or pronunciation of proper names, but there is indeed a consistent transcription. The primary task of this paper is to write a transcription principle by stating its consistency and concisely and listing examples.
The Catholic Church published the Bible (2005), and to aid in understanding, the Bible Committee of the Bishop’s Conference published a separate volume of the annotated Bible titled “Principles of Transcription and List of Leniency and Exceptions for Biblical Proper Nouns.” This document is a practical guide that compiles necessary items for the Korean transcription of proper nouns from the Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek, including existing leniency and exceptions. In my paper, the principles of transcription of proper names in the NKRV are written in accordance with this article to allow for a comparison of the Catholic and Protestant principles of transcription of proper names.
The categories of leniency are divided and explained, and they must be synthesized and written systematically. This second task has been presented in detail in my previous published papers, hence here I will summarize the key points and write a more concise set of ‘detailed rules.’ Finally, these principles and detailed rules will be applied to all transcriptions of proper nouns in the New Testament. This task involves transcribing approximately 700 proper nouns, but due to space limitations, this paper will only extract and present the proper nouns that replace the NKRV’s transcription method.